Brian H Donohoe: The Minister may not know that the post office in Irvine in my constituency, which serves some 30,000 people, is to be franchised. One of my reservations about that proposal is that the franchise will include licensed premises. Many elderly people in the area are opposed to that concept and fear the whole idea. It is also almost bizarre that staff have only recently undergone a training programme to help to widen the scope of the business of the Crown post office, but it will now be of no use whatsoever.

Colin Challen: Will the energy review have anything to say about providing more information to energy consumers? If we buy a can of beans and see how many calories are in it and every other food product has similar labelling, why cannot we see from our fuel bills how much CO2 we are emitting as a result of our consumption?

Alistair Darling: As my hon. Friend is aware, we believe that we need radically to reform the system of agriculture support in Europe. However, negotiations are taking place at the moment and they have to conclude, to be realistic, by the end of July. It is clear that there are three main problems: the perception of the EU offer; support for United States agriculture; and access to manufactured goods and other services in countries such as Brazil and India. Movement will be required from everyone if we are to reach an agreement. The prize of getting that agreement in the current round is extremely great and we want to encourage it, but if negotiation is to work all parties must show sufficient flexibility and they need to do it soon.

Malcolm Wicks: Of course we are aware that there has been a long-term decline in manufacturing industry throughout much of the European Union, yet manufacturing remains a vital part of the British economy and, in many respects, is still buoyant. Indeed, I note that for the three months ending in April 2006, there were more than 50,000 unfilled vacancies in the manufacturing industry. My hon. Friend is right to say that, as well as the further development of the service sector, manufacturing is vital to the economy.

Malcolm Wicks: The best way is with the healthy and buoyant macro-economic environment that the Government and the Chancellor have provided, with low interest rates and inflation. Surely providing that is the role of the Government and the best thing that they can do, rather than making too many interventions and over-regulating. We are committed to the manufacturing industry, which is a buoyant part of the British economy. Venture capital has a role to play, but that role is relatively small when put alongside other forms of investment. We share the view that is being expressed in the House about the importance of the manufacturing industry. Our judgment is that the best way to stimulate and encourage the industry is through prudent—to coin a word—macro-economic management.

Malcolm Wicks: It is true that, although carbon dioxide emissions from some sectors, including the energy sector and intensive energy users, are reducing, they are still increasing in the service sector, whether that is the superstore or the governmental system. When I visited the excellent Tesco branch in Thornton Heath, I was impressed that one staff official had responsibility for energy efficiency. That is a practice that we should adopt. Should Government do more? Yes, they should, and we are looking at that in the energy review.

Jonathan Djanogly: The Conservative party welcomes the OECD guidelines and, on the basis that corporate social responsibility should be set in the context of wider corporate governance, we also welcome the lead that the OECD has taken with its continental corporate governance panels. But the question remains: why do the Government give so little time to promoting corporate social responsibility, particularly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) pointed out, given the excellent, world-beating corporate responsibility practices that we find in so many British companies?

Edward Vaizey: I have no problem in principle with the restructuring, but can the Minister help me with an inquiry that has been raised anonymously with me by a constituent, who makes the point up to 300 senior managers will be part of the restructuring, and if the restructuring happens in that way and if the UKAEA does not win a contract, those senior managers will be removed from the site, which will compromise safety? My constituent contrasted that with the restructuring of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which apparently involved only 40 or 50 senior managers. Is the Minister aware of that concern, and would he like to comment on it?

Malcolm Wicks: I was not aware of that. I do not receive the anonymous letters that the hon. Gentleman gets. I will examine the matter. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me and includes his signature so that I know from whom the letter is coming, I will take the matter up seriously with the authority, with which I have regular meetings. There is important work to be done, not least in terms of nuclear decommissioning. While the process is resource-intensive, it needs to be as cost-effective as possible.

Jim Fitzpatrick: The question of the protection of the green belt against the development of the university and York science city is something that the regional development agency, the city council and the authorities take very seriously. Those decisions are not taken lightly, and I am sure that everything has been done to protect the green belt. The Government's record on green belt protection since 1997 is exemplary.

Jim Fitzpatrick: In the past 12 months, the Department has received 73 representations on the question of adopting single or double summer time throughout the year. Those representations reflect the strong divergence of opinion on the issue, which suggests that the present situation is a satisfactory compromise between those who prefer lighter mornings and those who prefer lighter evenings.

Ruth Kelly: My hon. Friend the deputy Minister for Women and Equality will attend the conference later today, and will promote our implementation of the women and work commission's recommendations tackling job segregation and the gender pay gap, as well as the measures that we have taken to deliver a better work-life balance.

Meg Munn: I welcome the hon. Lady to her responsibilities on these matters. The Government agree with all the aims of the convention. The reason that we have not signed is that we have concerns about automatic reflection periods, which are the subject of the next question. We are concerned that they might act as further pull factors in relation to asylum and immigration. However, we have held a consultation on a UK action plan and as part of the response to that, the matter is under active consideration.

David Heath: I thank the Leader of the House for his prompt response following the last Business Questions on the issue of the Bichard inquiry; that was in marked contrast to the performance of the Home Office.
	The Greater London authority inquiry into 7/7 threw up yet another unfulfilled recommendation of a major public inquiry. Can we have a debate on the way in which we keep track of these matters and on how we ensure that when serious inquiries into disasters are held, the recommendations made are adhered to and implemented at the earliest possible opportunity?
	Following the welcome news of the apparent demise of al-Zarqawi in Iraq today, no one would be naive enough to think that that spells an end to the violence in Iraq. This is the tenth time at Business Questions that I have asked for a proper debate on the foreign affairs aspects of Iraq. When he was Foreign Secretary, the Leader of the House indicated that he would have welcomed such an opportunity. The time is right for such a debate; will he ensure that we have one before the summer recess?
	I also noted the fact that we are to have a debate on Europe on Wednesday 14 June. Given that some parties do still have friends and influence in Europe, will the Leader of the House suggest to the Minister for Europe—his predecessor—that he comes to the House on that day to spell out the Government's position on putting an end to the absurd charade of moving the European Parliament to Strasbourg permanently, with all the costs to the British taxpayer that that entails. It is time we put an end to this nonsense once and for all, and this country should be setting a lead in the matter.
	Lastly, could we have a debate on fixed-term contracts? I noted the attempt by the Leader of the House to enliven the Prime Minister's monthly press conference today, and the Secretary of State for Health's offer in her statement yesterday to be fully accountable for future failures in the health service. If we had fixed-term contracts for Cabinet Ministers, we could have targets, appraisals and tests for value for money. We could see whether premises were being used. Most importantly, we could ensure that people did not outstay their welcome in Cabinet posts.

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman's first question was in respect of the inquiry into the 7 and 21 July terrorist outrages last summer. May I say that full account is always taken of inquiry reports and that there was a meeting recently of the Cabinet Committee on international terrorism, which looked carefully at the conclusions of the GLA inquiry and discussed many of its findings? That will continue, because it is in everybody's interests that we learn the lessons from what happened last 7 July, and indeed on 21 July.
	On the issue of the death of al-Zarqawi, let me say that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has described it—on this occasion, I happen to think that it is entirely appropriate that it should be so described—as good news, because that man was an evil butcher who was killing Iraqis, as well as coalition forces, in large numbers. Nothing was going to stop him, I am afraid, until he was stopped in this way. I may say that I hope that we can put on record our admiration for all those in the Iraqi forces and the coalition forces, as well as others, who were responsible for his apprehension.
	I understand entirely what the hon. Gentleman says about the case for a full debate on foreign policy. I am alive to that, as is my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip. Our only difficulty is finding the time, alongside many other requests. I say to the hon. Gentleman that there is an opportunity to raise those matters in the Wednesday debate on Europe next week, because Iraq— [ Interruption.] Well, he makes a sedentary gesture—a polite but critical sedentary gesture, indicating that he does not entirely accept what I am saying. I have to say to him that before the European Council will be Iraq, Iran and the middle east, so there is every reason for him to use that opportunity, along with his right hon. and hon. Friends, to debate those matters next week.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of Strasbourg as the seat of the European Parliament. That arrangement is now friendless, except for those in the host country. I am sad to say that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) has just reminded me, that was one of a number of errors made by the Major Government in 1992, because they set that arrangement in concrete. We all have to deal with that.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked about fixed-term contracts. I do not think that there is a case for them, and I would put this request way below, for example, a request for a debate on the tax system. I hope very much that the Liberal Democrats will use their next Opposition day for a debate on it, because what is clear from the announcements being made today is that they are ditching higher rates for the rich for higher taxation for everyone.

Iain Duncan Smith: First, I associate myself with the paean of praise from the Leader of the House to the Iraqi Government over the death of that monster al-Zarqawi. I know that everyone else would join us in that.
	No one beats me in supporting the forces in their determination to seek out those who would support terrorist acts in the UK, but a number of people in the Islamic community are now quite concerned that there is a deep game going on among the extremists to try to discredit those who are supportive of the British authorities in their search for such information. The raid in Forest Gate, just down the road from my constituency, and the continuing search, with nothing yet found, for those weapons was matched on Wednesday—48 hours ago—by a raid in Dewsbury and the arrest, or rather lifting, of an individual.
	I understand that in the same street in Dewsbury and in the same house—the house of Sheikh Yacoub Munshi—on Saturday 3 June, the director of the Defence Academy, Lieutenant-General Kiszely, visited that family. That man's grandson was lifted on Wednesday and taken by the police, supposedly in connection with the arrests in Canada. I think that the police are now weakening their position over him, and it may be that he is released.
	My concern is simply this: we have a delicate situation, and I am not criticising the police, but I wonder to what degree the various Departments are talking to each other, such that a senior general, for good reasons, visits a family to support those who have been supportive, only to find that same family subsequently targeted. I urge the Leader of the House to ask the Home Secretary to come to the House to make a statement.

Jack Straw: I take seriously what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, and of course I understand the delicacy of that matter, not least with my constituency background, but I say to hon. Members that there is a dilemma facing not just the intelligence services and the police, but every Member of the House, which is, do the agencies and the police act on credible intelligence, knowing, of course, because that is the nature of intelligence, that it might not be fully accurate, or do they ignore it, knowing that it might well be accurate? If they ignored it, and a terrorist outrage followed, the opprobrium on them would be far greater than in the reverse situation. That is the dilemma facing the police and the intelligence agencies. I believe that they carry out their job phenomenally well, and they deserve our full support.

Andrew Smith: What consideration has my right hon. Friend given to the prospects of any legislation further to deregulate Sunday trading? In view of the extensive opposition on the Labour Benches, and indeed in all parts of the House; the concerns of retailers, large and small; and the opposition of family and Church groups, as well as the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, is not this something that the Government would be wise to drop sooner rather than later?

Jack Straw: I well understand my right hon. Friend's concern, and I recall that in 1991 and 1992 we shared a similar position on the free votes that took place to amend the shops legislation. We take full account of what he and others have said on the issue and I shall ensure that his views are relayed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

Charles Walker: May we have an urgent debate on the consequences of unskilled immigration to the UK? While such immigration may benefit the middle and upper-middle classes, because those immigrants tend to work in restaurants or to clean offices and homes, that level of immigration is not so good for the less well off in our society, who end up competing with the newly arrived for scarce resources such as housing, education, health and jobs. That is creating some unnecessary and unwanted friction in our communities—I suspect not just in my community, but in the community of Blackburn, which is represented by the Leader of the House.

Jack Straw: I am always happy to see these issues debated. Contrary to myth, there is a high degree of control over immigration into this country, especially in respect of low-skilled workers who have no family connections here. The hon. Gentleman knows that, but he would know more if he talked to fruit farmers in Herefordshire, Kent and many other areas, and not just to people in what he describes as more prosperous areas. I could take him to a factory in my constituency that would not be operating without low-skilled workers from eastern Europe, because the owners could not recruit others to do those jobs. That is a reality, and we have to choose between maintaining employment at its current levels with all the protections, including the minimum wage, that we introduced and he voted against—[Hon. Members: "He was not here."] Had he been here, he would have voted against them. He is not denying that. I know that he spoke out against those protections in his leaflets, so the fact that he was not here is, on this occasion, irrelevant. I understand the point that he makes, but I do not agree with it.

Jack Straw: My understanding is that the IPU will send a delegation, but that is a matter for it to decide, taking account of any advice that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary may have to offer. I understand the strong case that my hon. Friend makes for a debate on Iran: I am seeking a debate on foreign policy, which could range more widely. I hope to be able to achieve that before the House rises for the recess, but that depends on accommodating all the multifarious requests.

George Young: Is it the case that one of the tasks given to the Leader of the House by the Prime Minister is that of resolving the impasse over House of Lords reform? If so, can the right hon. Gentleman make a statement before the House rises for the summer recess, indicating the progress that he has been able to make and how his approach differs from that of his predecessor?

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman says, "Oh, no!" and throws up his hands, but whether he likes it or not, the proper thing to say is, "Oh, yes!" The quality of healthcare in Ribble Valley, Longridge and elsewhere has increased and will continue to do so.
	The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) asked a specific question about the PCT boundaries. I assure him that I will take the matter up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and ensure that he is given an answer.

Brian Iddon: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be interested to hear that there was an extremely well-attended debate yesterday in Westminster Hall on the question of securing peace between Palestinians and Israelis. However, most Back Benchers present were unable to make proper contributions, largely because the three Front-Bench spokesmen took up a third of the time available. Calls have been made already this morning for debates on Iran and Iraq, so should we not have a full debate in Government time on the whole question of the middle east?

Bob Spink: As we approach the wonderful season of garden parties, fetes and proms provided by communities, schools, churches and volunteers to raise money for good causes, can we have a debate that will allow us to expose the perverse interpretation of the newly implemented Licensing Act 2003 by some councils that want to discourage those good works? The Government need to provide clarity about the application of that Act.

Nadine Dorries: The unfortunate consequence of an ageing population is that many more people will suffer from dementia. In fact, the number of people being diagnosed with the condition is rapidly increasing. Unfortunately, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has decided to continue to restrict the use of drugs for Alzheimer's disease in future. Can we have a debate on the consequences and the wider health and financial implications of an ageing population?

John Redwood: Can we have an early debate on management of the likely consequences of climate change, which would allow us to look into the use of desalination plants, such as the one proposed for Beckton, for more water resources and better coastal protection? Otherwise, the welcome for the Olympic games in Britain will be, "Don't shower while you're here. These are the dirty games. There's no water to wash—but be careful in case there's a flood".

Alan Reid: Can we have an urgent debate on the effect of VAT regulations on the construction of community swimming pools? I ask that because islanders on Mull have raised enough money to construct a swimming pool, but the project is in danger of collapse because of complications in the VAT regulations. Community recreational projects are supposed to be zero-rated for VAT, but Revenue and Customs are threatening to levy VAT in this case. If the Leader of the House cannot find time for a debate, will he at least draw the Chancellor's attention to that matter? I am sure that the Government would not want this important community project to fail because of VAT complications.

Michael Penning: On 11 December, just before Christmas last year, the largest explosion that Europe has seen since the second world war took place in my constituency. I praised the Deputy Prime Minister the following day for making a statement before the House. Since then, 4,000 jobs have been put at risk and our water table has been contaminated, but we have received no money from the Government. Can we have debate in which some Secretary of State makes it clear who is in charge, as the Deputy Prime Minister has been moved from his position? I do not mean that in any detrimental way, but this is a very serious matter.

Jack Straw: Of course I understand the profound seriousness of what happened and the importance of the long-term implications, which are too easily forgotten about once the problem is no longer in the headlines. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister was personally concerned about the matter, and continues to be so. I shall certainly raise it with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for Trade and Industry and for Communities and Local Government. I will get the hon. Gentleman a response.

Tony Baldry: I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 2281:
	 [That this House expresses concern at the Department of Trade and Industry's decision to review advice on the use of mechanical parts in electrical components; notes that the decision to include mechanical parts under the European Directive on Hazardous Substances will in effect place a ban on most decorative lighting; further notes that no other EU member state is extending the ban to mechanical components in decorative lighting; further notes that the ban will not extend to mechanical components imported into the UK including from competitors from Asia; further notes that the lighting industry believes that 200 lighting manufacturers employing over 4,000 people face bankruptcy under the new guidance; and calls on the Government urgently to review the new guidance on mechanical lighting to exclude it from the EU Directive on Hazardous Substances.]
	Can we have an early debate on Whitehall's obsession with gold-plating EU directives? Two hundred jobs in Banbury are at serious risk because the Department of Trade and Industry is interpreting an EU directive on the regulation of hazardous substances on decorative lighting in a way that no other member state is doing. It is a complete nightmare, as companies have had only three weeks' warning of the change in the regulations. Frankly, it is crazy. This kit is still going to be importable from China and the far east, so the directive is anti-competitive, leading to lost jobs in the UK. It is mad.

Michael Gove: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask for your help in your role as protector of Members' rights against the abuse of their privileges by the Executive. It was my understanding that when Ministers and other Members visited another Member's constituency, they wrote to them beforehand to explain the purpose of the visit. Yesterday, the Prime Minister visited Frimley Park hospital in my constituency without giving me any prior notice of his visit. Earlier this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister with responsibility for veterans visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson), again without giving advance notice. It seems to me an abuse of the House when Ministers visit constituencies for party political and propagandist purposes without giving due notice, thereby denying Members the right to raise issues of pressing concern to their constituents such as the future of Frimley Park hospital and its upper gastro-intestinal unit. As you well know, Mr. Speaker, that is a matter of deep concern to me and to my constituents, and I would have loved to have the chance to ask the Prime Minister why his Department of Health was closing a world-beating centre. I was denied that opportunity by the arrogance of the Executive.

Mr. Speaker: It is normal for Ministers not to make statements on Supply days, but there are occasions when that is not the case. Sometimes Ministers come forward to make statements to the House, and the hon. Gentleman will know that when a Minister seeks to make a statement, I have no power to reject that statement. Of course the House has a dilemma: we must consider the importance of the Supply day, but Opposition Members in particular are very keen for Ministers to come to the House to make statements. So we have that difficulty as well.

Alan Beith: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The matter will be before the House in one form, because the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs will question witnesses on Tuesday on that Bill, having expected it to be available some time ago. We now know that it will not be available until Monday, and we may have to find some way to tell the witnesses whom we want to question about it what it contains. That is not a satisfactory way to proceed, particularly when the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs is offering to provide a completely alternative system of scrutiny in which she chooses the witnesses and the people who carry out the scrutiny.

Bridget Prentice: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	I am pleased that, after much debate and discussion in the other place, the Bill has finally come to the House. It is part of a much wider set of initiatives that we are promoting: we are determined to tackle practices that might stop normal activities, because people either fear litigation or have become risk-averse. We want to stop people being encouraged to bring frivolous or speculative claims for compensation, and the provisions in the Bill will help us to do just that. They will reassure people who are concerned about being sued that, if they adopt reasonable standards and procedures, they will not be found liable.
	The Bill will also put in place the legislative framework needed to regulate claims farmers—those people who encourage consumers to make claims—too many of whom are cowboys who have abused the system for too long, and we are going to put a stop to it.
	Part 1 contains provisions on the law of negligence and statutory duty and on apologies, offers of treatment and other redress. Clause 1 relates to the law of negligence and statutory duty, and some hon. Members have had concerns about the need for that clause. We believe, however, that it is important and that it will have benefits.
	The Better Regulation Task Force in its report "Better Routes to Redress" made clear its view that, although a compensation culture does not exist in this country, the perception that it does can have a real and damaging effect on people's behaviour. That can be particularly significant in respect of activities provided by voluntary organisations and others.
	Last autumn, Volunteering England found that nearly one in five organisations said that people had stopped volunteering for them because of fears about risk and liability and that nearly a quarter of organisations said that volunteers had been deterred from joining them in the first place by concern about those issues. Those fears may well be out of proportion and based on inaccurate perceptions, but they are very real. So there is a need to provide reassurance to those who are concerned about possible litigation—not only in the voluntary sector, but elsewhere too—and about how the law in this country works. That is what clause 1 will do.
	The way that clause 1 will work is that, in deciding a negligence claim or a claim for breach of a statutory duty that involves a standard of care, the court must consider whether the defendant owed a duty of care to the claimant and, if he did owe such a duty of care, whether that duty was breached, and whether the claimant suffered loss or injury as a result. In considering the second of those factors—whether the duty of care was breached—the court must consider the standard of care, and whether the defendant fell short of that standard.
	In this country, the ordinary standard of care used in considering whether negligence is involved is that of reasonable care, and whether the defendant has met that test is a question of fact for the court to decide, having regard to all the circumstances of the case. Clause 1 is therefore concerned only with the approach of the court to assessing that question of fact. It does not concern or change what the standard of care should be, nor whether the defendant owed a duty of care to the claimant.

Andrew Dismore: Perhaps my hon. Friend might offer a definition of desirable activity as it is a new concept in common law, which, as far as I can see, has not been defined by any previous authority. Her comment that the provision simply restates the existing law, the Tomlinson  v. Congleton borough council ruling, which is the most recent authority on the issue, makes it quite clear that the sort of exclusion to which she refers does not apply across the board, particularly with an asymmetric relationship—for example, the employee-employer relationship. Will she therefore undertake to table an amendment to correct clause 1, to put right the fact that it does not accurately reflect the law as it presently stands?

Simon Hughes: In clauses 1 and 2 do the Government seek to codify—to put into written statute—the present law? Do the Government seek to take the law as the courts have defined it and put it into an Act of Parliament? If that is the case, there may be merit in that. The Government have a long-term plan which many of us support to codify the law so that people have a clear view about what it stands for.

Bridget Prentice: It is not my wish to enter into a debate on the merits of common law and case law versus codification, although the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have a long-term ambition, as most Governments do, to codify the law properly. What I am trying to say about clauses 1 and 2 is that they seek to clarify the situation so that people feel comfortable with the activities in which they participate. It does not reduce the protection available to claimants. It will be open to the courts, as now, to decide, for example, whether the terms in which an apology is given amount to an admission of liability in the circumstances of an individual case.

Lembit �pik: In the context of what the Minister is saying, it is my understanding as a supporter of clauses 1 and 2 as far as they go, that they offer a form of protection to volunteers and volunteer organisations who are losing volunteers because of the perception that she discussed earlier. Is it the Government's intention to make it clear to those voluntary organisations that those clauses will give them some legal protection against vexatious and spurious claims, which are having a practical and measurable effect on volunteering in the United Kingdom?

Oliver Heald: As the hon. Lady knows, one of the largest groups of claims farmers are trade unions, which make their money from referrals to solicitorsoften at about 500 per referraland take money from damages in some cases. Many unions do an excellent job, but does she agree that for trade unions to be completely unregulated in this field, while she is saying that the commercial sector should be completely regulated, is nonsense?

Bridget Prentice: I point out gently to the right hon. Gentleman and to other colleagues that if they allow me to develop my speech I will come to that point.
	The practices we want to stamp out fall into three main areas. The first is the encouragement of frivolous claims, by raising false hopes about the compensation available, through high-pressure marketing techniques, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) described. Secondly, consumers are misled about the options for funding their claim; in some cases, companies do not let them know that there is a free alternative and, in others, they sell inappropriate additional services, such as loans to fund insurance premiums. Thirdly, we want to protect consumers against poor-quality advice where claims managers act directly for them.
	Citizens Advice frequently has to pick up the pieces when claims farmers leave consumers high and dry. Its 2004 report, No win, No Fee, No Chance, referred to a woman who had tripped and suffered cuts and bruises. Three years later, she was offered 500 compensation from the company concerned, but on the advice of a claims management company she it turned down and was encouraged to borrow money to pursue the claim. She eventually won 1,200 but that was deducted from her loan, leaving a shortfall of 950 which is still accruing interest. Clearer information about the risks and the likelihood of additional costs that would have to be met from her own pocket might have led to a better outcome.
	 Which? has recently carried out research into claims management companies dealing with endowment mis-selling and found wide variation in the fees charged and services given. It also found evidence of scaremongering by some claims management companies, which suggested that claims brought by individual consumers themselves would almost certainly fail. The evidence is actually to the contrary.
	My Department and the Advertising Standards Authority have recently funded comprehensive market research on the impact of claims advertising, which, among other things, confirmed that people have limited understanding of what is involved. Terms such as No win, no fee are often misinterpreted and the need for a third party to be at fault is not always apparent. The research is being presented to the bodies responsible for the various advertising codes, and they are considering whether changes to the codes are necessary.

Bridget Prentice: I could hardly have handed the right hon. Gentleman the question, but the next line in my speech is: we have considered various options on the best way in which to proceed, including whether there should be a role for the Claims Standards Council. I can confirm that the Department for Constitutional Affairs will initially regulate the industry directly. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be the regulator. The core elements of direct regulation will be: the Secretary of State as regulator, with day-to-day responsibility for regulation delegated to a civil servant with the appropriate skills and experience; a monitoring and compliance function, contracted out to a trading standards unit responsible for supporting the Secretary of State in carrying out authorisation, monitoring, complaints and enforcement; and a non-statutory advisory committee made up of representatives of the financial services and insurance industries, the legal profession, consumer groups and the claims management sector.
	Our prime concern is to safeguard consumer interests. To that end, those wishing to provide claims management services will be required to seek authorisation from the regulator. The system will have teeth. As a condition of authorisation, authorised persons will be required to comply with strict rules and any person breaking those rules risks having their authorisation suspended or removed. There will be a clear mechanism for dealing with consumer complaints and authorised persons will need to have indemnity insurance. I hope that that covers the right hon. Gentleman's question.

Tony Lloyd: Does my hon. Friend accept that, as with solicitors and voluntary organisations, trade unions provide a vital service to their members and members' families and that, where those trade unions operate properly on a not-for-profit basis, there is a strong case for exemption, as long as there is a form of internal regulation? Will she say how the Government intend to move forwards on the concept of the exemption of trade unions where they are not operating as claims farmers, as the Union of Democratic Mineworkers perhaps has done in Nottingham?

Bridget Prentice: Amazingly, my hon. Friend again brings me to my next point. He is quite right about not-for-profit organisations, voluntary organisations and the vast majority of trade unions. We intend, therefore, through secondary legislation, to exempt charitable organisations that provide claims advice and to exempt independent trade unions, where they provide services to their own members and their own members' families.
	I know of and agree with the genuine concerns about the activities of a small number of trade unions, particularly in relation to coal health compensation schemes. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I take those concerns seriously. However, few would dispute the high quality of legal services provided by the vast majority of trade unions to their members. The power to exempt by secondary legislation will give us the necessary flexibility to exempt trade unions, but where appropriate, that can be withdrawn for individual unions where the consumer is losing out.

Oliver Heald: I welcomed the second half of the sentence. Does the Minister not accept that there is concern that trade unions are completely unregulated in the area? If she is saying that solicitors, the majority of whom behave properly, and all other professionals in the area are to be regulated, how can she possibly justify exempting trade unions, especially given the concerns about the way in which some trade unions have behaved? Is that simply because the Labour party is funded by the trade unions and many unions are solvent only because of their claims management activities?

Bridget Prentice: Quite frankly, I will leave the last part of the hon. Gentleman's comments for my hon. Friends to dismiss appropriately.
	The exemption will apply to independent trade unions on the certification officer's list. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that such trade unions are not already subject to a form of regulation, he misunderstands some of the legislation that the previous, Conservative Government put in place. Trade unions that are not classified as independent will need to seek authorisation, as will those that provide regulated claims management services to non-members.
	The Secretary of State will be able to attach conditions to an exemption. We will draw up a code of practice with the trade union movement that will provide a benchmark by which trade unions' provision of claims management services can be judged. The Secretary of State, as the regulator, will take into account evidence of any breach of that code when considering whether to remove the exemption of trade unions.

Kevan Jones: Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) was actually correct when he said that trade unions are not covered in the area at present? However, they will be covered when the Bill is passed because the vast majority of trade unions, given their high standards, will be able to meet the code of conduct that she is outlining, whereas the rogue elements, such as the UDM and others, will fall foul of it. Does she further agree that trade unions do not charge for their legal services at the moment because since we have had conditional fee agreements, money that comes to the union, which allows it to fight the test cases, is brought back as a success fee from the other side?

Bridget Prentice: My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is not surprising that Labour Members know and understand that vulnerable people, whether they are members of trade unions or individuals who go to citizens advice bureaux, need expert legal help. Trade unions, citizens advice bureaux and other organisations are freely available to give such help. We should commend them on doing that, rather than suggesting that they do so for their own profit.
	Let me return to the regulation. If people carry on providing claims management services regardless of the regulation, the regulator will be able to apply for an injunction to prevent them from continuing to provide claims management services while he investigates and gathers evidence to proceed with a prosecution. If necessary, he can also request a warrant to enter and search premises. Anyone who is found guilty of the offence could face a term of up to two years' imprisonment, a fine, or both. I think that I can say to the House that the cowboys' days are numbered.

Bridget Prentice: The very fact that we are having this discussion demonstrates that the trade unions, voluntary organisations, the Law Society and other bodies with different forms of regulation have shown that the exemption is an appropriate way of proceeding. I repeat for the hon. Gentleman's benefit that anyone who is given an exemption, but breaches the code of practice, could be brought back into the regulatory framework. The beauty of the Bill is that it is sufficiently flexible to allow that to happen. The comments of Labour Members show that trade unions are doing excellent work in the vast majority of cases. We can have every confidence that that will continue to be the case under the exempted procedure.
	The framework provides flexibility to respond to a changing market. It is proportionate and closes the regulatory gap, and it will provide similar regulatory requirements for claims farmers and solicitors. It will also send out a powerful message to those who attempt to evade regulation.

Nick Brown: I sense that my hon. Friend is drawing her remarks to a close. Before she concludes, can she tell us anything about mesothelioma and the recent case in the House of Lords? As she is aware, there is a substantial desirecertainly among Labour Membersto return the law to the way in which it stood before the recent judgment. Is the Bill a suitable vehicle for doing that, and will the Government bring forward proposals so that the House can vote either to uphold the law as it is at present, or to put it back to what it was before? The House itself should make the final decision on the matter.

John Greenway: The Minister has been extremely generous with her time, and I was reluctant to intervene, except that she has made a very important announcement: the decision that the Department for Constitutional Affairs will regulate the claims management industry. Given what she said about how that will fit with the legal services reforms planned by her Department, will she be a little clearer about the timeframe she envisages for the introduction of the regulatory framework? Given the mood of the House, does she agree that if in the meantime the unregulated claims management industry is to continue, there is a great deal more that the Law Society could and should do, through its code of conduct, to influence its members' choice of whom to work with in managing claims?

Bridget Prentice: We want to look at mesothelioma cases in the round. That is why I have been unable to go as far as I might like todaywe must make sure that we get this right. We do not want to discover that we have left loopholes. I take my hon. Friend's point, and I am sure that it will be considered during that discussion.
	We have worked constructively with the Opposition in the other place and amendments have been made as a result. We have already published a policy statement that outlines how we intend to use the delegated powers in the Bill, and model rules that will provide an indication of the standards that are likely to be applied to organised persons. Copies of both of these documents are in the Library. We will be consulting on draft statutory instruments later this month while the Bill is before the House. I will ensure that copies are available to right hon. and hon. Members as soon as possible.
	We have undertaken targeted consultation on our proposals to regulate claims management companies and there has been widespread support from key organisations, including Citizens Advice, which has said that it is delighted with the Bill's tough but flexible approach to protecting consumers.
	The Secretary of State's consumer panel on legal services reform has had its remit extended to advise on the development of the regulation. The panel was set up originally to ensure that wider reforms of the legal services market were focused on the interests of consumers. It, too, is fully behind the Bill, with the wider agenda of putting the consumer at the centre of the system.
	As I have said, there are many reputable claims companies, but there are also cowboys. They need to know that we will not stand for shoddy service and poor advice. Consumers deserve better than that. Through the Bill they will get a better service. I commend the measure to the House.

Oliver Heald: We are all grateful to the Minister for setting out the details of the Bill and it aims. It was the subject of considerable scrutiny in the other place, and I pay tribute to Lord Hunt of Wirral, who made some important improvements to it through his constructive approach. I believe that his research team, under Andrew Parker, has done a great deal of work to help with the process.
	We welcome the Bill because we recognise the need to tackle the perception of a compensation culture. It is perhaps more a perception than a reality, but it is, nonetheless, having an important effect, and the problem of risk aversion should not be understated. It is important that the Government are issuing guidance to public bodies on what constitutes negligence. I disagree with the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore)he and I, as lawyers, understand these concepts. To educate people, particularly those in public bodies who want to run school trips and the like, is a sensible thing to do. The hon. Gentleman may wish to know that the Association of Personal Injury LawyersAPILhas advocated such education. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would support that.

Andrew Dismore: As the Lord Chief Justice said, we cannot encapsulate the common law in one sentence. I can only assume that the hon. Gentleman has not read the entirety of Lord Hoffmann's judgment on the Tomlinson and Congleton borough council case. Lord Hoffmann makes it clear that discussions on what is now called desirable activities should not apply where there is no genuine informed choice, such as in the case of employees. There is no exclusion within clause 1 to reflect the important qualification that Lord Hoffmann applied to it. Therefore, it does not accurately represent the law.

Oliver Heald: The hon. Gentleman is at cross purposes with me on this matter. Is he seriously saying that we should make Lord Hoffmann's speech in the Tomlinson case clause 1? If so, I cannot agree with him. Clause 1 is supposed to be a clear statement of an aspect of the law that needs to be declared so that people can go on school trips, enjoy their scout outings and the like. We do not need to try to second- guess the judges in the way that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting. The idea that a judge is not able to decide on and explain a desirable activity is preposterous.

Julian Brazier: As for the Tomlinson case, the plain fact is that the lower courts have not responded in the way that the House of Lords expected them to do. I shall be setting out in some detail later this afternoon a case in a court in Manchester that was heard during the Bill's proceedings in the House of Lords, which illustrates the point.

Oliver Heald: It may be that there are cases that have been decided and have received a good deal of public attention, which should have been appealed and were not. APIL has made that very point. I am interested to see the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) nodding.
	Having accepted the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) makeswe will all be keen to hear what he has to say because he has led the campaign in the House for a clear statement of the law in statute, and I congratulate him on thatwe, like the Government want to see the balance struck correctly. That should ensure that people are properly compensated in genuine cases of negligence. However, we need to discourage a culture in which people are encouraged to pursue trivial or spurious claims in the belief that that will make them a great deal of money, either through awards by the courts or under out-of-court settlements.
	We believe some parts of the Bill could benefit from greater clarity. I will be tabling amendments to clause 1. I hope that we can proceed on a basis of consensus to try to produce a Bill that has overwhelming support in the House.

Oliver Heald: My view is that the courts are capable of deciding what is or is not a desirable activity. The expression comes from the very judgment to which the hon. Member for Hendon referred. The use of certain words in clause 1, including particular in several places, need examining further. I shall be tabling amendments on that point.

Lembit �pik: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there has been considerable consultation with many voluntary organisations that regard clause 1 as materially beneficial to them. Does he agree that in Committee we need to examine in great detail the question that he has raised, in addition to other questions of definition which have been bouncing around the Chamber? As we all agree with what we are trying to achieve, the crucial question is whether a measurable difference will be made to the organisations for which the Bill has primarily been tabled. I hope that the hon. Gentleman feels that we can find consensus on that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) responds, we are in danger of reaching a stage where the Bill will not need to go into Committee. I appreciate that this is a detailed matter, but I should be grateful if he would not be drawn away from the basic content of the Bill, and did not express a view on what it might include.

Oliver Heald: The hon. Gentleman has got the facts wrong. The main liability does not fall on the insurers but on the Government, as claims are made against the Ministry of Defence, schools and so on. There is therefore a case for Government, insurers, and companies that cannot trace previous insurers to come together in a simple scheme. This is an urgent problem, because of the speed with which the condition progresses, but it will be with us for a very long time indeed. Most estimates suggest that mesothelioma cases will peak in 2020, which is a long way away so, for the future, it is important to introduce a simple system that works. I hope that the Government can act as an honest broker, but we should also bear in mind the fact that they have an interest, too. As I said, however, we are prepared to take a constructive approach.
	In addition to the Constitutional Affairs Committee, which produced an excellent report, may I thank the Better Regulation Task Force, which has served us well by publishing a very good report, Better Routes to Redress? That report cited a survey of 212 councils in England and Wales carried out by Zurich Municipal and the Local Government Association, in which 85 per cent. of respondents agreed that the
	introduction of conditional fee arrangements has increased the annual cost to my authority of handling compensation claims.
	In addition to the abolition of legal aid for personal injury cases, the growth of claims management companies has fuelled the development of a compensation culture. The Constitutional Affairs Committee concluded that introduction of conditional fee arrangements and a class of unregulated intermediaries acting as claims managers have
	adversely affected the reputation of legal services providers. The increased awareness of the public that it is possible to sue without personal financial risk, when combined with media attention to... unmeritorious claims being brought, has contributed to a widely held opinion that we do indeed have a compensation culture.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and other hon. Members have cited many such cases, and I should like to make special mention of the examples provided by the scouts and the Field Studies Council . We have all seen headlines in the newspapers: a teacher won 55,000 after slipping on a chip at school; a boy received 4,000 after falling 1 ft from a tree; and a council tenant who had drunk 10 pints fell in the middle of the night as he tried to change a light bulb. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hendon would say that those are meritorious claims, but they give rise to questions, and they are certainly food and drink to the tabloid newspaper industry.

Oliver Heald: I know that this is not popular in the Cambridge law faculty, but we can deal with the problem by accepting a clause that declares what the law is and advertising widely what its effect will be. According to the Better Regulation Task Force, tort costs in the UK, as the hon. Gentleman said, are low compared with those in other countries. The Law Society, the Country Land and Business Association and others say:
	The fact is, Britain spends less on compensation than almost any other industrialised country...the number of accident claims had remained static and in fact fell last year .

Oliver Heald: The matter needs to be reviewed but, given that the Bill deals with the civil aspects of compensation, I am not convinced that clause 1 is the place to do so. My hon. Friend raises an important point, which needs to be fully considered and reviewed. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister, perhaps later, whether the Government intend to do that.
	When I was speaking to Norwich Union earlier this week, its representative explained to me that the current common law is clear and well established, and that Norwich Union questions whether new legislation on negligence is necessary. That was also the view of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, but we do not go that far. We believe that there is a case for clause 1, and that it is important to get the wording right. We have some comments to make about that in due course. As my noble Friend Lord Hunt made clear in the other place, the courts will have to build up their case law on the basis of the Bill if it is passed. I agree with the Minister that that is unlikely to create the huge difficulties that some claim.
	Clause 2 recognises my noble Friend's wish to support rehabilitation and early settlement of claims. The clause is one of his attempts to establish that if at an early stage an insurance company or an employer makes an apology and offers treatment, remedial works or whatever is necessary, that should not prejudice any later legal action.
	My noble Friend achieved an important change in the law which will help to encourage mediation, boost rehabilitation and hopefully prevent cases from coming before the courts except where absolutely necessary. Citizens Advice and the Association of British Insurers are keen that such proposals should be pursued, as am I. We are pleased that in the other place the Under-Secretary of State said that she would not argue further about clause 2. I hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that she does not intend to remove or substantially amend it in this place.
	One aspect that we intend to pursue is personal responsibility. It is an important issue and we shall press the Government to define the responsibilities of individuals and to consider whether in certain circumstances that might provide a defence of individual negligence. The matter has been considered in other jurisdictions. There is a problem for those who run leisure parks and other institutions where there is an element of risk. If someone is grossly irresponsible and negligent, it should be possible to defend a claim on that basis.
	The Minister mentioned the case of Barker  v. Corus, and I have set out our views and our constructive approach on that.
	Have the Government any plans to deal with a problem pointed out by Citizens Advice? In hospitals the advertising of claims management services and legal services seems rather inappropriate. When the Minister reflects on the regulation of claims management companies, will she consider whether advertising is an aspect that needs proper attention?
	Although we agree that regulation is long overdue, we believe, as I said earlier, that the trade unions need to be considered. I pay tribute to the work of many trade unions. I have worked as a volunteer in advice centres and undertaken cases for trade unions, and many of them provide an excellent service in the area of personal injury and employment law. However, if solicitors and all the other groups are to be regulated, is it possible to exempt the trade unions, which would be completely unregulated in this area?
	It is mentioned that the Union of Democratic Mineworkers has had its problems, but that it is not the only trade union which has been criticised for making money out of referrals of this sort. It is said that many trade unions are solvent only because of this area of their activities. I notice that the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) seems to agree with me.

Nick Brown: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Minister on her introduction to the Bill. One of the great pleasures of being in this place is to be able to follow an expert speaker speaking with knowledge on a specialist subject. Unfortunately, one does not always get the opportunity to do that, and on this occasion I do not. The knowledge of the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) about the way in which trade union legal services work does not show hands-on experience. He seemed a little hazy about the real issue involved in the mesothelioma cases as well, although my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) tried to put him right about that.
	I shall confine my remarks to part 2, which deals with claims management services. It is the Government's intention, as my hon. Friend announced today, that the Secretary of State would be the regulator. That is, I think, intended only as a temporary expedient, and the Government's long-term intention is that the mechanisms that form part of the new regulatory framework for legal services will encompass these arrangements as well. The Minister will correct me if I have got that wrong, but it seems to be the direction in which we are heading. That seems perfectly sensible.
	I want to deal with three aspects: regulation in controversial areas, which essentially means personal injury cases; trade unions, which I know something about; and the mesothelioma situation. I should declare my interest as a member of the GMB trade union. I was an official of the union before I was elected to Parliament, I maintain close connections with it, and I am proud of my long-standing relationship with it.
	Conservative Members have made much of the need to regulate unions, but the Minister made it clear that there will be a code of practice, and that if unions breach it they will lose their exemptions. In other words, if a union behaves like a claims farmer, it will be treated as such. As a Labour Member, I think that that is absolutely right, and I am pretty certain that my right hon. and hon. Friends agree with me.

Tony Lloyd: My right hon. Friend is right to say that no Labour Member would want any union to operate as a claims farmer without being treated as one. Will he confirm that far from trade unions not being regulated, there is a whole host of legislation that determines how trade unions can deal with their members, gives remedy to members when they are in dispute with their union, and so on? In fact, the Conservative Government brought in quite a lot of that legislation, which this Government have not changed.

Andrew Dismore: There is another reason for the matter to be dealt with urgently. The Barker case did not end the story. The Barker decision remitted the case back to the High Court for a decision on how risk should be assessed between the different parties, presenting an opportunity for a further chain of appeals leading to the House of Lords yet again. It could be many years before we see a resolution of the issue in the courts.

Simon Hughes: I represent people who worked in the docks and who lived in the old dock-worker communityalthough perhaps not to the same degree as other Membersfor whom the same issues arose. There were significant knock-on effects.
	I want to make two other general points. This debate is not unrelated to the great debates that we have had in this place on incapacity benefit, time off work and so on. Sometimes, even though people are physically able to go back to work, they are advised not to do so because the compensation has not been sorted out and the legal case has not ended. We want a healthy and working society, but we also need to get the balance right between people's liberties and their duties to each other. There are some significant issues to deal with in that regard.
	I was not doing this job when the Bill was launched last autumn, so I checked to see what my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said then. The title of the first page of his very brief notes was, Compensation Bill modest but welcomeHeath.  [Interruption.] That was a description of the Bill, not of him, although he is probably both those things. He went on to say:
	We all agree that there is an urgent need to deal with and regulate no win, no fee 'claim farmers', but we need to look very carefully at the issue of duty of care...the idea that this Bill presents a massive set of plans to tackle the compensation culture is a huge oversell.
	To be fair to the Government, I am not sure that they said that the Bill was going to do all that. It clearly is in some ways modest, but it is none the less important.
	Given that the Bill started its life in the other place, I checked to see what my noble Friend Lord Goodhart said when he kicked off our comments. The Billnot least clause 1, to which I shall returnwas considered in the other place for quite a long time. On Second Reading, Lord Goodhart said:
	This is undoubtedly a well meaning Bill, but being well meaning is not enough. Part 1, which is clause 1, is at best unnecessary and may well lead to confusion and still more litigation. Part 2 unquestionably has a useful and desirable objective.[ Official Report, House of Lords, 28 November 2005; Vol. 676, c. 87.]
	Following Second Reading, clause 1 alone was debated for some nine hours in Grand Committee, and for two hours on Report.
	I join the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) in paying tribute to colleagues from all partiesand in particular to the Minister in the Lords with responsibility for the Billand to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, who worked very well together. Lots of amendments, and progress, were made. I also pay tribute to Lord Hunt of the Wirral, who did a lot of good work for the Conservative party. I looked to see what the general collective wisdom was at the end of the debate. Lord Goodhart said:
	Part 2 has now been both changed and improved to an unusual degree
	that is true; much progress was made
	and it is now a very much better Bill than it was when it was brought forward...As for Part 1, I remain dubious as to whether Clause 1 will do more good than harm. It presents a real risk of causing serious problems. However, I am pleased that the Government have accepted Clause 2...Overall, I welcome the fact that this Bill will now go on to the other place.[ Official Report, House of Lords, 27 March 2006; Vol. 680, col. 577.]
	I could not quite work out whether Lord Goodhart was saying, Thank goodness we're not going to be preoccupied with it any more, or, There is a lot more work to do, and you guys have got to get on with it. But anyway, here the Bill is, and we will seek to do just that.
	As the Minister said in her introduction, we must deal with the significant issue of new unregulated businesses dropping leaflets through our letterboxes seeking business, unsolicited. As the Government said, it is sensible initially to deal only with what are the most live issues, of which personal injury is obviously the biggest and most important. Housing disrepair is another issue that is raised regularly in our surgeries, and others include employment, criminal injury compensation and the mis-selling of financial services, which is an increasing problem not just in London but elsewhere.
	Having been in the House for as long as I have, I take the fairly robust viewI hope that colleagues of similar long service agreethat we need as little legislation as possible, not as much as possible, and that it should be as simple as possible. I approached this Bill on that basis. I also believe that we should regulate as little as possible. We are in great danger of having too much regulation, which is why the Better Regulation Task Force exists. Governments understand that we are trying to whittle down the amount of regulation. That said, of course consumers need a degree of protection, and the Bill is about getting that balance right. If we are to have regulationwe Liberal Democrats are persuaded that we shouldit should be effective and proportionate and go only as far as is necessary in dealing with the problems that have arisen. At the end of the exercise, the judgment is whether we have got that balance right.
	So if we are to have regulation, we clearly need a regulator. Again, I take a fairly simple view. I am absolutely opposed to the idea that every time we see a new problem, we should set up a new regulator and new committees, and new structures and organisations involving new people and new costs. Rather, we should look around to see who else exists who can do the job. I share the Minister's view, however, that the two potential candidates in the financial services world were not the right ones. I also share her view that the other existing bodies that appeared suitable to do the job were not the right ones, and that it would be better for the regulator to be a member of the family regulating legal and other services.
	However, we have to have an interim stage. It might seem slightly bizarre to think of the Lord Chancellor as the regulator of claims farmers, but that job will keep him occupied in his post-Lords-speakership days and justify his saying to the Prime Minister, I've got plenty to do. It might even justify his salary being kept at the same level. Following that interim stage, we will need to move on. Once the draft Bill on legal services has been enacted, I hope that we will have a single, streamlined and minimalist regulatory system that costs as little as possible and occupies as few people as possible.
	The much-heralded progress that everyone applauds is clause 2I have heard very little criticism of itwhich was not in the Bill at its outset. It is very simple, but it deals with a very important issue. We have all been there. I remember stopping suddenly in my vehicle one dayit was an election dayat a set of traffic lights and someone immediately behind me failing to stop. On another election day, exactly the reverse happened. I was looking over my shoulder and by the time that I turned round, the fellow in front had stopped and I had not. One then thinks, Dare I say sorry? Dare one apologise when in some cases, it is self-evident that the accident is the fault of the person behind, who has run into the stationary vehicle in front?

Simon Hughes: As the hon. Gentleman, who also once fought the North Southwark and Bermondsey seat, says, that was exactly the question. The accident happened at The Blue shopping centre, and the person in question was a constituent of mine, so the response was slightly different.
	Clause 2 states:
	An apology, an offer of treatment or other redress, shall not of itself amount to an admission of negligence or breach of statutory duty.
	It is very important for a courteous society that we do not say that someone will be liable for all the consequences financially just because they naturally said sorry. That is simple and welcome, and much easier than the great debate on clause 1.
	We probably should not have started from here; we should have had a draft Bill, or we should have sent it to a Special Standing Committee where evidence could have been taken. Behind me sits my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, whose specialist subject in life is, as he will explain, this bit of the law; we have the best academic advice available. A kind of seminar is going on as to what the law should be.
	I agree with the Government's proposition as set out in the excellent Library research paper that
	we strongly should oppose any culture where people believe that if there is an injury there must inevitably be someone else to blame, and someone else to pay. And we oppose people being encouraged to believe that it is always worth 'having a go', however meritless the claim.
	I hope that there is consensus on that.
	I hope that there is consensus also on something the Prime Minister said just after the last election; not about his future, but about the future of the Bill. He said:
	The Bill will also clarify the existing common law on negligence to make clear that there is no liability in negligence for untoward incidents that could not be avoided by taking reasonable care or exercising reasonable skill. Simple guidelines should be issued. Compliance should avoid legal action. This will send a strong signal and it will also reduce risk-averse behaviour by providing reassurance to those who may be concerned about possible litigation, such as volunteers, teachers and local authorities.
	All of us who did law know that the most famous such case is probably Donoghue  v Stevenson, whose pre-eminent judge in the House of Lords was one of my Welsh secondary school's great academic old boys, Lord Atkin. The principle that he set out still applies today;
	In English law there must be, and is, some general conception of relations giving rise to a duty of care, of which the particular cases found in the books are but instances...But acts or omissions which any moral code would censure cannot in a practical world be treated so as to give a right to every person injured by them to demand relief.
	The debate has focused on whether the law as set out in that case in 1932 and in the 2004 Tomlinson  v Congleton borough council case is sufficient.
	In the Tomlinson judgment, Lord Hoffman and Lord Hobhouse made two simple things clear; first, that people must be allowed to take risks and, secondly, that the landowner should not be worrying that he has to protect himself against people doing what they want to do on mountainsides and in fields. Lord Hobhouse made an important point about liberty, saying that it should never be
	the policy of the law to require the protection of the foolhardy or reckless few to deprive, or interfere with, the enjoyment by the remainder of society of the liberties and amenities to which they are rightly entitled. Does the law require that all the trees be cut down because some youths may climb them and fall? Does the law require the coastline and other beauty spots to be lined with warning notices?... The pursuit of an unrestrained culture of blame and compensation has many evil consequences one of which is certainly the interference with the liberty of the citizen.
	The test for the blessed clause 1 is whether it adds anything to the current law. I hope that we get a formulation that meets the concerns of the Select Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and of those who say that adding desirable activity poses a problem and that making it a permissive rather than an obligatory requirement on the courts may add very little.
	If a doctor does something wrong when operating on or treating a patient, the doctor is, by definition, carrying out a desirable activity. If a tattooist does something wrong, they may be regarded as not carrying out a desirable activity in the same sense. There is a danger that the liability for negligence of the doctor may then be lowered in a way that the public would not expect. I am not against seeking to codify the law, but above all, I want to send a message that we must not discourage people from doing desirable things.

Simon Hughes: I think that my hon. Friend will not like the answer to that question. I take the view that if it is possible to encapsulate in one or two sentences in an Act of Parliament what the law is, rather than drive people back to reading five House of Lords judgments, we should do that. Therefore, it is better to write something down as the law of the land, if we can, than to have to go and read the words of the great legal minds of the country, because most people do not go there, it is more difficult and there is more than one judgment. So, if we can, let us do it.
	The last point that I want to make is about the rest of the Bill, which is much less controversial. There is one controversial issue left in the regulatory system, which was touched on by the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend and others. It is the question as to how we ensure fair play for all who are involved in the business of dealing with claims and the rest.
	As I understand it, clause 3 says that if somebody, as an individual, is involved, but not as part of their business, they are exempt, or potentially exempt. I want to ensure that, at the end of the legislative process, there is a level playing field so that members of trade unionsin the past, I acted for Thompson's, which did a lot of trade union work as solicitors and instructed me and otherswho expect that, once they have paid, they will get a service, are in the same position as those who join a political party, the Co-operative movement, a voluntary organisation or whatever and are also told that they will get a service. Provided that there is a level playing field and everybody is treated the same, if the organisations are of the same sort, that is reasonable.
	Of course, we need to ensure that individuals are not under some great regulatory system if they are doing something voluntarily and in a way that everybody understands does not give them a legal relationship, with the liability that follows.
	The Bill does not deal with a lot of issues, which will be left on the agenda and have been set out by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and others, and which we shall have to revisit to achieve better access to justice in the civil law. However, the Bill does some important things. As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome said, it is modest, but it is none the less important for that. However, I fear that we still have quite a bit of work to do.

Tony Lloyd: I begin by welcoming the consensual tone of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). I also want to make a few brief points about the role of the trade unions and about the question of mesothelioma, which is enormously important.
	I should perhaps start by saying that I have an interest as an active trade unionist and as chair of the trade union group of Labour MPs. I also have an interest in the asbestos industry, because I worked in an asbestos factory when people were systematically subject to risk that ought to have been criminal, not simply the subject of compensation. If I have some reasonably strong feelings on the subject, perhaps Members of the House will understand.
	I was disappointed by the speech of the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) in that he wanted to perpetuate a certain type of myth, which, I am afraid, goes back to the visceral view among some of those who occupy the Conservative Benches that trade unions are fundamentally a bad thing. The reality is that if most members of trade unions were asked in whom they had greatest trust in pursuing on their behalf an employment claim or a claim for personal injury, the trade unions would figure highly in terms of a relationship of trust.
	That does not for one second ever absolve those trade unionsthe Union of Democratic Mineworkers in the east midlands is onethat have behaved spectacularly badly with respect to the members and have operated, de facto, as claims farmers. However, it is important to establish that there is a position of trust between trade union members and their unions as their representatives.
	In that light, the hon. Gentleman, who is absent from his place and who told the House that trade unions make their money by claims, did not give an accurate picture of reality. I wish that, when pressed, he had been prepared to justify his claims from the Front Bench and name the trade unions that he claims are abusing the position of trust.
	It is important that, for example, lawyers maintain professional integrity and that their clients believe that most lawyers operate honestly and decently, even though we accept that there are rogue lawyers in the system. In the same way, it is important that members of trade unions have the same trust. It is not reasonable to use the facilities of this House of Commons to make a generalised condemnation of trade unions in a way that is designed actively either to mislead or to pursue a partial point.

Tony Lloyd: I am delighted to know that I am not the irritating noise.
	We need the Barker judgment to be reversed, because the present situationas my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) pointed outis bad because it splits liability and therefore in the many cases in which the companies no longer exist the individual firm that contributed to causing mesothelioma will be able to avoid paying compensation.
	In fact, the problem is worse than that. The allocation of risk process means that the accepted defence in many cases will be that non-existent companies bear a greater proportion of responsibility for the factors leading to mesothelioma. Claimants will get only tiny levels of compensation as a result, and that is simply unfair. The Barker judgment has no legitimacy, and a change in that respect is needed very urgently.
	I very much welcome my hon. Friend the Minister's clear commitment that the Government are looking to make a change. Many hon. Members have raised this matter in the Chambermy hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) did so with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister yesterdayand elsewhere. We know that the Government are sympathetic to proposals for change, but we need to ensure that there is an urgency about delivery, and that it is consistent with our recognition of the damage done to people who are rendered very vulnerable by the condition.
	I know that many other hon. Members want to take part in the debate, so I shall not use my full 15 minutes. However, I must tell my hon. Friend the Minister that efforts will be made to table an amendment to the Bill that would allow the Barker judgment to be set aside. I hope that such an amendment, whether it comes from the Government or the Back Benches, will do the trick, although I understand that it may not be possible or practical to devise an appropriate proposal in the time available.
	I hope that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire will reconsider his remarks. I am afraid that he gave me nothing better than a resounding maybe in response to my question about the Opposition's support for a change in the legislation. I hope that he will go further, as the inclusion of such a provision might have aroused opposition in the Lords and caused the Bill's passage there to be blocked. Progress will be easier if we can agree, on a consensual basis, that the change is desirable and deserving of support by the Opposition in the Lords.

John Greenway: First, I remind colleagues of my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. In warmly welcoming the Bill, I remind the House of the work of the all-party insurance and financial services group, which I have chaired since 1992. For many years, we have taken a close interest in the issues covered by the Bill. In anticipation of the draft Bill, we took evidence last year from a number of organisations and 11 witnesses in total, including various insurance lawyer trade associations, the industry and even the Claims Standards Council. We issued our report in November.
	There are three features of the current compensation environmentI shall not be drawn into a debate on whether there is a compensation cultureagainst which to judge the likely effectiveness of the Bill: risk aversion, rehabilitation and the regulation of claims managers. Risk aversion is important because, as we all know, many events or activities do not take place because of concern over potential claims for negligence in respect of personal injuries. Public liability insurance costs have risen to the extent that many activities do not take place because there is no public liability insurance cover and the leisure industry has seen a dramatic increase in the cost of both employee and public liability insurance.
	Secondly, rehabilitation is important because we are still not doing nearly enough to ensure that people who suffer major injuries as a result of a workplace or motor accident are treated quickly and got back to work quickly.
	Thirdly, the regulation of claims managers is important because of the widespread malpractice by so-called ambulance chasers, run by some pretty ruthless and unscrupulous people who are happy to sell on the introduction of a victim while contributing precious little towards the speedy and satisfactory handling of a claim. The no win, no fee basis of claims handling is confusing to claimants, often results in significant parts of their compensation being hived off to pay legal bills and has contributed to a situation in which legal fees amount to a staggering 40 per cent. of all personal injuries claims costsmoney better used to rehabilitate and compensate victims and, I dare say, better used if we all had to pay lower premiums for the insurance cover that we have to purchase. In the end, we all pay; insurers have no money other than what we pay them in premiums.
	I shall deal with the three items in turn. On risk aversion, the new definition in clause 1 is meant to enshrine in statute the current understanding of the law of negligence. We have already had considerable debate on whether that clause is necessary, whether it adds anything to existing law and whether, if it does not, it has any point. Back in November, the all-party group agreed with the lawyer associations that clause 1 should be dropped, but the Government have not been persuaded to accept that view. If, as looks likely, clause 1 remains, I hope that we will be able to examine it in further detail in Committee because it is critical to understand precisely what the clause means.
	I am concerned about some of the new concepts, particularly desirable activity, that may require a new definition, but I sense from listening to today's debate that there may already be something new in the definition and perhaps more in the Government's intentions than they have admittedthough I do not say that in a critical way. If the new definition clarified what precautions might be disproportionate in persuading people not to go ahead with a desirable activitythat seems to lie behind what the definition suggestsit could have a positive aspect.
	As other Members have suggested, it is important that the courts, including the lower courts with which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) has a bone of contention, fully understand Parliament's intentions. It is wholly desirable that voluntary organisations, who obviously rely on volunteers and do not have access to an army of expensive lawyers, understand precisely the legal implications of what they do.
	I want to make one other point about the insurance aspect. Many activities do not take place simply because people cannot afford the public liability insurance cover. The long-term test of the new definition in clause 1 should be what it does to public liability insurance underwriting. I rather suspect that, for quite some time, underwriters will wait and see what happens in all the court cases that I know the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) thinks are likelywe had an exchange about the matter one evening in one of the Dining Rooms recently. We need to keep that prospect in mind.
	I turn next to rehabilitation. Just one issue has dominated our news for the past six weeks. It is nothing to do with politics, the state of the world or even Iraq. It is Wayne Rooney's broken metatarsal. It has dominated every news bulletin and every newspaper. We all hope that he has been miraculously rehabilitated, but that experience is in stark contrast to the long delays experienced by people with workplace and motor accident injuries in getting the rehabilitation that they need to get them back to work.
	Clause 2 is a hugely welcome addition because it can provide new impetus to efforts to get people rehabilitated quickly. That is better for claimants and for employers. It is also better for third partiespeople who have caused accidents. We should not always think that they are being difficult because they do not have sympathy with the victim. Most of the time, they do. In the long run, quicker rehabilitation is better for insurers.
	All the evidence points to the fact that the more quickly someone can be rehabilitated, the more likely it is that they will recover from the injuries that they have suffered in an accident, especially motor accidents in which people suffer whiplash injuries, back problems and so on, and the more likely it is that, for the good of them, of all of us and of their families, they have the chance to get back to work. So I welcome the addition of clause 2 and congratulate my noble Friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and his colleagues in the other place on introducing it.
	The regulation of claims managers is a long overdue measure. Some right hon. and hon. Members have concerns, as I do, at the notion of yet more regulation, but currently we have the farcical situation in which the arranging and sale of an insurance policy is subject to statutory regulation, and the loss adjusters who assist the insurers in the handling and measurement of claims are regulated through their professional body the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjustersbut claims farmers are not regulated at all. Yet it is in the management of claims that abuse and mischief lies. The proof of the pudding is in the eating is an old saying, but it is only at the point of claim that people understand whether the insurance policy that they bought provided them with the protection that they thought it did when they paid the premium. It is at the point of claim that the real value lies.
	Undoubtedly, whether the individual policy holder claims for himself against his own policy is an issue about which we should be concerned, but it is far worse if we are dealing with the management of a claim in respect of a third party, who has a right of action under the policy as a result of what has happened, but has no relationship with the insurance company in the way that the policy holder does. It is critical that we get the claims management industry properly regulated.
	For the regulation to work, it must be comprehensive. There has been much discussion about exemptions. I want to make two points about them. If there are exemptions, the bodies that regulate exempt organisations must have equivalence in their regulatory bite. I am reassured by the Minister's comments that if trade unions, about which there has been much discussion, do not match up, they will be subject to tougher regulation.
	The most critical thing is definition. I strongly urge the Minister to regulate the activity and avoid the danger of simply regulating the name claims farmers. My experience in the matter comes from the past 10 yearsall the time I have been a Memberof my election to the Insurance Brokers Regulation Council, which was a statutory regulator, but we regulated the name insurance broker. If a firm used the title insurance broker, it had to be regulated by the IBRC. Of course, many people practised, in effect, as insurance brokers but called themselves insurance consultants, so when we disciplined a broker and chucked them out of the profession they carried on in business under another name. We have to avoid that situation in respect of claims farmers.
	It is also critical that the regulator has the power to exclude, and that there is no route back for the cowboys to whom the Minister referred several times. That means that we need strong codes of conduct, but we also need clarity about precisely what they can and cannot do in their presentations to claimants and possible clients and in the advertisement of their services.
	The Government have made huge progress by specifying that the regulator will be the Department for Constitutional Affairs, even if only temporarily. I heard the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and I understand his sense of disappointment that we are not being provided with a distinct regulator. However, we have to bear in mind the other side of the argument. There are probably only about 500 claims management firms and my hunch is that half of them could be driven out of business, which would reduce their number to 250. Even charging them reasonable fees would not give us a basis for funding a regulator to do all that I have suggested needs to be done. We may have to wait until the new regulator has been set up under the Legal Services Bill to bring all the threads together.
	I am disappointed, however, that the Financial Services Authority has not agreed to undertake the regulation process. Claims management is related to insurance products. It is a financial services issue, so that is largely where the regulation should be. The intention is not to pursue a vendetta against claims managers but to ensure that they operate professionally and that we protect consumers from the unscrupulous. We must also ensure that the accident or event that is the subject of the claim, which is a bad enough experience for the individual, does not become a double whammy, due to bad advice about how to claim. All of us have heard about such experiences in our surgeries.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that you and the House will forgive me for not staying until the end of the debate, as I have another duty to perform. I particularly wanted to take part in the debate and hope that my comments show that I am very much behind what the Government want to do. The Bill is long overdue and I wish it well. The regulation of claims managers and strengthening the possibility of rehabilitation are two developments that we can all warmly welcome, and from which all our constituents will benefit in the long run.

Andrew Dismore: I declare an interest, as I was a personal injury lawyer for 20 years before I became a Member. I worked with trade unions and their members, not in an academic way but hands on, with real cases, helping real victims. I remain a consultant with my law firm, but I have not taken cases since I came to this place. I am a founder member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, a former member of its executive committee and a former Law Society specialist assessor for its panel of personal injury lawyers.
	My job here is to represent constituents, not lawyers. If I were here to represent lawyers, I would probably welcome clause 1, because it will wave off not just a mere gravy train but a veritable Orient Express of rich cordon bleu sauces for the legal profession. It will create a tsunami of litigation that will flood the courts with cases of such complexity, and in such volume, that Jarndyce  v. Jarndyce will look like a small claims debt recovery action in comparison.
	Clause 1 creates confusion where there is settled law. It will jeopardise safety standards, creating a charter to kill and maim with impunity. It will deprive deserving claimants of their just compensation and will create a two-tier system whereby victims of identical accidents have entirely different outcomes. I chair the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has expressed criticisms of clause 1. We were not persuaded that the clause accurately reflects the subtleties of the existing law of negligence. It restricts access to legal redress by claimants, including vulnerable groups. We believe that the clause will be applied in a manner that restricts claimants' access to justice and runs the risk of being in breach of our country's obligations under articles 2, 3 and 8 of the European convention on human rights.
	It is claimed that all that clause 1 does is restate the law, but if that is the case, it raises the question: why do it? The common law has developed over the past 75 years in particular, starting perhaps with the Donoghue  v. Stevenson principle and ending, most recently, with Tomlinson  v. Congleton borough council. There have been many other cases in between. In no way does the clause accurately restate the law. The Lord Chief Justice made it clear to the Constitutional Affairs Committee that
	it is quite impossible to encapsulate the law of negligence in a single sentence.
	Despite the Government's protestations and the Minister repeating herself until she is blue in the face, clause 1 manifestly fails to reproduce the common law as it presently stands. In reality, the clause is simply a reaction to the popular misconception of the compensation culture, which has been roundly rubbished by everybody who has bothered to look at it. The facts show a decline in claims, not an increaseso why reinforce prejudice?
	Clause 1 is riddled with ambiguity, uncertainty and a lack of legal precision. It starts off by giving the court discretion about whether to apply it. That in itself will lead to many legal arguments about whether the judge should or should not have exercised his discretion in the first place. It refers to the need for the claimant to identify the taking of precautionsa positive case required from a claimant that was not previously required. This is about expecting a claimant to deliver a positive safety regime for the defendant if they are going to win their case. The clause introduces a whole new concept into common law of desirable activity, which the Bill fails to define. The Minister indicated earlier that she was not prepared to define it through an amendment.

Andrew Dismore: I cannot, because we are on a time limit [Interruption.] I have given way already.
	Of course we want to encourage adventure and volunteering, but the existing law already provides for that. If it is true that the clause simply restates the law, the Government must accept that argument. Contrary to the words that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) tried to put into my mouth, I warmly welcome the idea that we should issue guidance and publications to explain the law as widely and fully as possiblebut frankly, I do not think that the clause is going to be the talk of school staff rooms, or scout leaders in the pub after a volunteering exercise. The fact remains that people will be far more interested in the guidance than what the clause might or might not state.
	The real effect of the measure will be not to encourage volunteering, but to put young people at even more risk when they participate in adventurous activities. It will also discourage parents from allowing their children to undertake such activities. It will create different standards. For example, in relation to driving, a minibus of scouts going to camp would have less protection than a bunch of football supporters going to a match. The clause will lower safety standards, lead to fewer precautions and condone negligence.
	What responsible parents would allow their children to go mountaineering, open-sea canoeing or sailing if they were told, By the way, this is a desirable activity, so if Johnny or Jill is hurt badly, breaks a limb, becomes paraplegic, or is even killed, and if it's our fault, there may be no compensation as a result. Clause 1 stinks, and must be withdrawn from the Bill. It does not restate the law, but weakens the position of the average ordinary person in the street.
	We should use the Bill to redress the balance. We should consider what needs to be done to improve the position of accident victims. There needs to be a clear exemption from clause 1 for employers' liability cases, and from clause 2 for trade unions. We need to recognise that in the past the courts have, in many respects, failed accident victims, and we should take this opportunity to put right those mistakes.
	We have already heard at length about Barker  v. Corus and other asbestos cases; we have heard about the pleural plaques cases; there is the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987, about which I made a point earlier; and there are many similar points to be made about asbestos. But that is only the start. If an insurer makes an admission of liability early in the case, why should that admission not be binding on it? The case of Sowerby says that it is not, and when a case is further down the track the insurer can say that it has changed its mind and does not admit liability after all. How does that strengthen the rights of claimants and avoid the need for litigation?
	The Law Commission, in its 1999 report, made it clear that damages for personal injury claims were far too low. It recommended that in cases where general damages exceed 3,000 they should increase by between 50 and 100 per cent. The Court of Appeal considered that in the case of Heil  v. Rankin, and did not do as the Law Commission recommended, but said that it was a matter for Parliament. It is a matter for Parliament, and we should take this opportunity to deal with it.
	This Government rightly introduced the system of periodical payments to allow those who are seriously injured to have compensation assessed and paid out over the rest of their lives. However, the system for indexing those payments is drastically wrong. It simply refers to the retail prices index and does not take account of the fact that many of the elements in those compensation awards are tied not to the RPI but to much higher indexes, such as the index of average earnings. We should use the opportunity of this Bill to put right that injustice and ensure that claimants receive the compensation to which they are entitled.
	The discount rate applied to an assessment of a future loss of earnings has been fixed at 2.5 per cent. since 2001. It is supposed to reflect the returns that a claimant can expect when investing his award, but unless it is reviewed regularly the discount rate does not accurately reflect market changes, which could put the claimant at a disadvantage. That, too, needs putting right, and the Bill is a vehicle by which we could do so.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) that rehabilitation is a crucial process for any injured claimant. There has been considerable discussion between the Government and stakeholders about ensuring early rehabilitation for claimants. Where liability is clearly established, insurers should have a statutory duty to ensure that funds are released to facilitate early, appropriate and independent rehabilitation. That would provide the impetus needed to ensure that rehabilitation becomes an integral part of the compensation system. Again, we could take the opportunity of putting such a duty in the Bill, but the Government have indicated that they are not prepared to do so.
	I was tempted to say that I would not vote for the Bill because of clause 1, which dramatically weakens the right of people in this country to compensation, thus pandering to the insurance industry, to the tabloids and to the myth of the compensation culture. But I shall vote for Second Reading because I passionately believe in the need for regulation of claims farmers, as set out in part 2. This is an opportunity to do some good in that respect, and the positive changes that I have advocated would take that even further. I first advocated regulating claims farmers many years ago, long before I came here, and I raised the issue at the very first meeting I had with a Minister in what was then the Lord Chancellor's Department, back in 1997. Nearly 10 years on, I am very pleased that the Government have, at long last, recognised the problem and are dealing with it. This has been a serious problem since the 1980s, when claims farmers first got off the ground.
	I hope that the Government will reflect on clause 1. It has little, if any, support beyond the tabloids, and even that is not clear. It is not supported by the lawyers, by the Constitutional Affairs Committee or by my Committee. I understand from the hon. Member for Ryedale that it is not supported by the insurance industry. Nobody has a good word for itexcept the Government, the official Opposition and the hon. Member for Canterbury, who thinks that it does something entirely different from what the Government say it does. It is opposed by the TUC, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and the Law Societyjust about everyone who has the interests of the little man or woman at heart, as opposed to the multinationals. We should not pander to myths; we should look at the evidence and at the harm that clause 1 will cause. I urge the Minister to look at the impact of what could be a useful reforming measure and to get rid of clause 1. Let us go ahead with part 2, which is badly needed.

Alan Beith: The Register of Members' Interests contains a reference to an interest that I have in the holiday park industry and states that I am the vice-president of the North Northumberland scouts. I hope that that pleases my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik).
	I shall speak briefly about the work that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs did on compensation culture and on the Bill. As many hon. Members have said, we were not satisfied with clause 1. We said:
	It neither satisfies those people who wish for volunteers to be provided with a special defence against claims of negligence, nor does it clarify the law. Instead, it is likely to lead to additional litigation, as people turn to the courts to define the precise nature of the provision.
	I shall return to that point.
	The Committee did not conclude that conditional fee agreements or litigation had created a compensation culture, but rather that there was a perception of such, with a variety of causes, that was not soundly based.
	We found no evidence that conditional fee agreements or personal injury litigation were a significant factors in causing risk aversion, and personal injury litigation has not increased in recent years.
	We said:
	Risk aversion has a number of complex causes, including advertising by claims management companies, selective media reporting, a lack of information about how the law works and, on occasion, a lack of common sense among those who implement health and safety guidelines. Risk aversion of this sort is a concerning modern phenomenon that has an adverse effect on individuals and on the economy as a whole. Instead of a statutory provision restating the law of negligence what is required is a clear leadership by the Government
	We went on to suggest that that
	should include an education programme making clear that risk management does not equate to the avoidance of all risk and active engagement by the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that it adopts an approach which is proportionate, does not over-regulate vulnerable sectors and instead offers appropriate advice and support.
	On balancing risk, the Committee was given a strong impression by the HSE that balancing different risks was not something in which it engaged. The classic example is the HSE stopping a commuter station from being opened because the platform was not long enough. Somebody might get out through a door, not obeying the guard's instructions, and sprain or break an ankle. That is a lower risk and a lower injury than if all commuters got into their cars and drove on congested roads into the city. There is the balancing of risks from two different areas. The system is not equipped to carry out that exercise, which leads to the consequences about which hon. Members are concerned.
	There is also the widespread and gross misuse of health and safety arguments, and sometimes on the basis of mere error. A lovely example of that is provided by the Lord Chief Justice, who was told when he went to a governors' meeting at his old school that he could no longer take an early morning dip in the swimming pool because there was no lifeguard or qualified member of staff present to supervise his swim. As a modest man, he did not assert, I am the Lord Chief Justice, and this would not stand a moment's chance in my court. If he had done so, that would have helped to spread greater knowledge of the law.
	Perhaps more often health and safety arguments are used as an excuse when a public body does not want to spend some money or does not have a budget for something that is clearly necessary to enable an activity to take place. Health and safety is often loosely quoted when it is not the real reason for not doing something.
	On clause 1, most accepted authorities will say that the Tomlinson case got it right, and that there is no clearer and sounder definition of what the law says than what came out in that judgment. I will not quote them again because my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) referred to Lord Hoffmann's trenchant words on the subject. There are real dangers in trying to second guess, as is done in clause 1. That relates particularly to satellite litigation on, for example, what might be desirable activities. That is only one of the areas in which litigation could take place on the basis of clause 1, and examples of that have already been given.
	If, as the Government concede, there is to be litigation to establish the meaning of clause 1, that immediately defeats its sole objective, which is to give people a clearer understanding of what the law is now. The moment that we get into fresh litigation, we have to wait for that understanding to exist.

Alan Beith: It is not an extra defence. Indeed, the Government differ from the hon. Gentleman, because they have sought to make it clear that the provision does not add a legal protection that does not already exist. It is simply designed to remind the public and the courts of the basis of the law as it stands, and it will not create any new legal defence. The clause will be read by people from one end of the country to the other, so it must be clear. It must be clear, too, as he has rightly suggested, in the lower courts. The Lord Chief Justice said that he did not know who was going to read clause 1:
	The average man in the street is unlikely to be reading clause 1. As far as the judges are concerned, and judges and lawyers are the ones likely to be reading statutes, and the clause sets out to define the position...not to change it.
	We should make the position clear so that cases related to the Pepper  v. Hart case have regard to the fact that Ministers have said that the law is not changed by the provision. Litigation will, however, arise from measures such as the desirable activities provision.
	There are two other dangers. Public authority staff are at a disadvantage, because they engage in desirable activities. The Government state that the clause is not intended to effect a change in the law, but there is a danger that that will give false comfort to voluntary organisations. My Committee took evidence from voluntary organisations, including the scouts, whose evidence impressed us, not least because they have made efforts to ensure that risk management was built into their systems and training. The problems are greatest for small voluntary organisations that do not have the facilities or experience built up by larger organisations. If we are not careful, the clause will give them false comfort.
	Turning to other issues, I am glad that the Minister gave me a clear, precise answer about who will regulate claims handlers. I sympathise with the Government's position, as we must look at what emerges from the proposed regulation of lawyers before we decide where responsibility should reside. In the meantime, the Secretary of State should do the job, so that he has something to do now that all his other responsibilities have been taken away. As a result, my Committee would have oversight responsibility for the claims-handling process, and we look forward to making sure that it works.
	Turning to the exemption provisions, anyone who, like me, represents a mining constituency will be concerned about the gross abuses of which claims handlers, trade unions and the Law Society, which failed to regulate lawyers, were guilty. Several firms of solicitors were deeply and disgracefully involved in that huge scandal, defrauding vulnerable people whom the Government had set out systematically to protect from any costsindeed, they paid for that protection. The exemption provisions must be proof against such a scandal, while recognising that trade unions and voluntary bodies such as citizens advice bureaux do a great deal of work to direct claims and ensure that people receive appropriate legal advice. The Committee must look carefully at the exemption provisions so that they meet the objective of ensuring that people whose claims are dealt with by a trade union or a voluntary body are not at a disadvantage if they are defrauded or not provided for.
	Most of the Bill is much needed, but clause 1 may prove to be a great deal more trouble than it is worth, as it may not satisfy genuine anxieties about participation in voluntary activity or the promotion of sports that involve an element of risk. Many of those anxieties are based on a misunderstanding of the law, on fears of prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive, on misunderstanding of the provisions required by the HSE and, indeed, on a series of things that the clause is not designed to address.

Alan Beith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will refer later to one or two cases which do not even appear in the law reports. That will be helpful to us. If cases are not resolved satisfactorily in the lower courts on the basis of the law as we know it to be post-Tomlinson, it will be necessary for those cases to go to appeal and to go up the system to ensure that they are dealt with satisfactorily. If that places an unreasonable burden on some of the voluntary bodies involved, such as the Scout Association, we must address that. We will not necessarily help them if we put in a clause which they think provides them with a protection which, in fact, it does not.
	I shall listen to the remainder of the debate with considerable interest, because I think that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire genuinely believe that this restatement of the law will provide an additional legal protection. It is not the Government's view, as they have clearly stated, that the law is changed.
	The Government are wrong, as the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) pointed out, on a different point. They are wrong that the Bill does not restate the law, because in relation to employees it clearly has that effect, but in relation to the defence that can be advanced by an organisation engaged in providing a voluntary activity or a risky sport, it is not intended to change the law. If it does, the House should know that it does. The Government cannot rely on two Back-Bench Members insisting that it does. In a Pepper  v. Hart judgment later in the day, it will not be their view that is considered, but that of Ministers. At this point I shall rest my case, as I want to hear other views.

Paddy Tipping: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of the Bill. Claims handlers have been described as cowboys. If that is the case, coalfield communities such as north Nottinghamshire are the wild west. The activities of claims handlers have caused false hopes, false expectations and real concerns and financial difficulties, not just to people who work in the mining industry, but for the women in the textile industry who have been gullible enough to make deafness claims through claims handlers. I strongly support part 2. The regulation of claims handlers is long overdue.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) was hostile towards clause 1. I am agnostic. I would like to see the phrase desirable activity defined. It is not defined. In her opening remarks the Minister made it clear that there would be further court cases to test the scope of the phrase. Rather than clarifying the law, that may well lead to confusion and delay.
	I am concerned about the position of public sector workerspeople who work in difficult environments, such as the fire brigade or the ambulance service. They are undertaking desirable activities, but the level of protection that they have under the clause may be less than they have at present. I am with the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). His Select Committee has considered the matter. I am agnostic about the way forward. I do not think the clause moves us on, and I look forward to a rigorous debate on clause 1 and its significance.
	Clause 1 is well balanced by clause 2. All bodies, particularly public bodies, ought to be prepared to apologise much more readily than they do. An apology is simply good practice. An early acknowledgement that things have gone wrong and that the institution is sorry could save a great deal of litigation later on.
	Let me turn my remarks to part 2. As I said, claims handlers have ridden roughshod over coalfield communities, and the difficulties involving coal health claims are well documented. It is not only down to claims handlers but to solicitors and, I have to say, to trade unions. Hon. Members are right to question why trade unions should be exempted from the Bill by secondary legislation. I have come to support that view, but we must be very careful about what it says in the code of practice that the Government intend to introduce.
	We must not be swayed by traditional allegiances to organisations such as trade unions. The unions have done, and continue to do, a tremendous job. They have brought forward test cases that have radically changed the law and have benefited working peoplebut at this stage, given recent events, we must ensure that claimants are at the centre of our concern. Where trade unions act as claims handlersas they do; let us not kid ourselvesthey must not be exempted. I am determined that the code of practice should make that clear. People who have been ripped off in north Nottinghamshire and other coalfield communities will be astonished and dismayed if a loophole is left open so that illegitimate, immoral activities can be undertaken by trade unions acting as claims handlers.
	Another aspect that the code of practice will have to cover is that of a trade union acting for a member and his or her close family and for a wider group of people. Trade unions sometimes act for groups of people far extended from their traditional activities. For example, the south Wales branch of the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers acts for people in the Kent coalfield who are not members of that organisation. The code of practice must make it clear that there is a difference between acting for members and acting for a wider audience.
	It is important that the code of practice is discussed with the TUC, which will, I am sure, be positive and helpful. It should not act as a sleeping watchdog but ensure that it intervenes heavily to stamp out abuse. Of course, some trade unions are not, and never will be, affiliated to the TUC. The code of practice must make it absolutely clear that trade unions, whether affiliated or not, operate legitimately within it.

Paddy Tipping: I am making it clear to the Minister that I will be satisfied only if the secondary legislation and the code of practice really do the job for which the hon. Gentleman asks. When trade unions act as claims handlers, they must be treated as claims handlers. I do not, in principle, object to unions charging a reward fee for a successful claim. I know the benefit that will result if the money is used by the trade union movement for other activities, such as taking on test cases. However, I believe that it must be absolutely clear that the claimant understood the nature of the contract when he signed it. It is obvious from the whole claims scenario that that has not been happening.
	The Minister is right, in the short term, to want to regulate claims handlers through the Department, but I hope that that is an interim solution. I should like there to be a regulatory framework separate from the Department. As others have said, a new legal services board will provide useful opportunities, but in the long term I should like to see more independence.
	A number of my hon. Friends have mentioned the Barker case and asbestosis. I am impressed by what the Minister has said publicly today and privately to colleagues who have pressed her on the issue: that the Government will try to establish a process to resolve it. This is a matter of life and death. It is also a matter of simple fairness and simple justice. I cannot understand the House of Lords judgment, and I hope that we will act with equity and fairness to resolve the issue. Although I probably do not need to do so, I seek an assurance from the Minister that over the next few days, and certainly in the next fortnight, we shall be able to engage in discussions about the process or mechanism that is required.
	I mentioned pleural plaques earlier. I accept that the litigation is now further down the road. The Court of Appeal has put many hundreds of cases on hold and the claimants are waiting for them to go to the House of Lords, but I know people who are suffering with pleural plaques, I know the history of payment over 20 years, and I know thatas with the Barker casethe law is changing fundamentally for working people. I hope that we will act with social justice again to resolve the cases of people who, through no fault of their own and through the fault of their employers, have been disadvantaged and put at risk.
	This is a good Bill, which has been improved in the other place. It is concerned with the essential elements of looking after claimants and workers. I am conscious, however, that we must work hard to improve it even more. We are heading in the right direction. As we say, much has been achieved, but much more needs to be done.

Julian Brazier: I welcome the Bill, especially clauses 1 and 2. I too congratulate Lord Hunt on his handling of the Bill, and in particular on his success in winning the vote on the splendid clause 2; and I congratulate the Government on their graciousness in accepting it.
	I shall make four basic points. First, I shall explain how adventure training and certain types of sport are being severely damaged by the current culture. Secondly, I shall try to make it clear that this is not just a question of perception; it is based on a string of court cases. Thirdly, I shall touch briefly on what society is in danger of losing. I shall end with a few ideas for strengthening the Bill.
	When I introduced my private Member's Bill, which has been mentioned in both Houses in this context, I was touched by some of the letters of support that I received. The Children's Play Council wrote:
	I have read with interest about your Private Members Bill on volunteering and risk taking...it is very common for playgrounds to be closed or removed because of local authorities liability fears.
	The Youth Hostels Association wrote:
	YHA welcomes the private members bill.
	Youthsport stated:
	I am happy to add the full support of Youthsport...As a training project for volunteers across London, Middlesex and Surrey we have been acutely aware of the growing trend towards litigation.
	After my private Member's Bill was blocked, colleagues and I set up the all-party group on adventure and recreation in society. I am particularly glad that my co-chairmen, the hon. Members for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt) and for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik), are present. We campaigned for fresh legislation, with the support of the Campaign for Adventurewhose remarkable director, Ian Lewis, has done much to keep us informedand we are delighted that the Government have introduced the Bill.
	The truth is that a huge amount of damage is being caused. In 2003, the Central Council of Physical Recreation and Sport England conducted the largest survey ever in the field of volunteering in sport and outdoor activities. It listed eight factors that were damaging volunteering, top of which came
	risk, fear of blame and the threat of litigation.
	More recently, the Scout Association carried out a survey of 1,100 scout masters. It stated that
	69 per cent. agree or strongly agree that the recruitment of new volunteers is made more difficult because of fears of being sued...a staggering 92 per cent. agree or strongly agree that risk-aversion is affecting the range and nature of activities being offered to young people,
	at a time when 30,000 youngsters cannot get into the scouts because they do not have enough scout masters, and when almost twice that number are waiting to join the girl guides for the same reason.
	That leads me to my second point. Why does that state of affairs exist, or is it just a perceptionan urban myth? I believe that it is a reality, given the large number of cases that have been fed to me. We sent a dossier of them to Baroness Ashton, who was very courteous about meeting us; however, we were told that, because her Department did not have law reports on those cases, even though we had given the dates, the courts and the names of the judges, it could not comment on them.
	I then read the proceedings on the Bill in another place. Lord Goodhart, speaking for some of the Liberal Democratsalthough not, it seems, I am relieved to hear, for the Liberal Democrat Front Benchers in the Commonssaid:
	There are, of course, reports of cases where damages have been awarded to people who are the authors of their own misfortunes. It is difficult to find authentic texts for these judgments and I suspect that some of them are urban myths. Some of them are reported; some were decided before the law was clarified in the Tomlinson case; and some are simply bad decisions, which are unavoidable in any legal system.[ Official Report, House of Lords; 7 March 2006, Vol. 679,  c.647. ]
	The question for Parliament is: is a pattern developing, or not?
	Six days after Lord Goodhart's speech, and while the Bill was still before another place, a court case took place in Manchester. It was one of many cases inflicted on the scouts while the Bill was being debated in the Lords. The scouts' legal adviser said:
	I attach a note of a recent case in which the Scout Association lost following an injury to a brownie attending a scout panto...chairs were set out in the village hall and the brownie was injured on allegedly sharp piece of metal protruding from one of the chairs...Apart from individually inspecting every chair with considerable resource implications endangering the running of such an event it is hard to see what more the group could have done. To add insult to injury the Judge awarded the claimant twice our counsel's valuation of the claim and 20 per cent. more than the claimant asked for!
	It cost the association 15,000.

Julian Brazier: Exactly.
	Let me give details of a second case, from a large dossier; the Gaping Gill incident. In summary, a scout troop visited a beauty spot and some parents were invited to come along as additional supervisors. On the way, a little boy asked a scoutmaster if he could investigate a cave in the side of a hill that they had passed. The scoutmaster said no, that it was dangerous and explained why. The boy asked his father, who said yes, took him to the entrance and gave him a lighter. The poor little boy walked over a 300 ft cliff to his death. His elder brother was serving in the troop.
	Two years later, when the boy's elder brother left the troop, the father sued the Scout Association. The scoutmaster was declared to be negligent in a British court of law on the grounds that having spotted an urban parenta parent from an urban environmentthe scoutmaster should have taken more active steps to prevent the boy from getting into the cave because he could not be expected to understand the danger.
	Let me make it clear that not only the scouts furnished us with cases. We have had them from the guides, the mountaineering community and the Royal Yachting Association, as well as one from a school.
	We must understand how much is at stake and how much damage is being done to our country. The Duke of Edinburgh, who is the patron of the Campaign for Adventure, has said in public:
	The danger for society is not that people take risks, it is that they do not take risks because they see risk as entirely negative rather than the very positive thing it really can be and most often is.
	By coincidence, almost the same month, the Lancashire education advisers issued a statement:
	Many Duke of Edinburgh Award Schemes and other providers of diverse educational opportunities are having trouble recruiting
	volunteers
	due to fear of unfair litigation.
	Sir Chris Bonington, who addressed the inaugural meeting of the all-party group, said:
	A sense of adventure is vital for children growing up and society as a whole.
	If young people are not offered opportunities to take risks and to learn to expand their horizons in a properly organised and structured environment, the less enterprising will turn into couch potatoes while the more enterprising will get out and make their own opportunities for risk. We see that in joy riding, people playing chicken on railway lines and a string of other unhappy events.
	I rather agree with the comments made by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) on balancing risk. Those are the risks we have to balance with the damage we are doing to voluntary organisations, and indeed professional ones, that provide adventure training and sport.
	Let me spend my last couple of minutes looking at ways in which we could strengthen the Bill. I want to make four points, two of which, funnily enough, were put forward by the Field Studies Council. First, there is perhaps something to be saidthis is the only part of the speech made by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) that I agreed withfor a clearer definition of desirable activities. Lord Hunt made an excellent stab at this.
	The basic point, if the House will forgive me for repeating it again, is that there is no contradiction between saying, on the one hand, that there is no compensation culture and accepting, on the other, that in this specific areaa tiny proportion of all cases, involving adventure training and sportreal damage is being done. The American experience proves it. America is the worst country in the world for a compensation culture, but there is specific protection for sport and adventure training in the law of many American states and a much higher burden of proof. I would be happy to have provision restricted to sport, adventure training, physical recreation and educational purposes, or something similar. I leave it to others wiser than me to draft the clause.
	My second point is that, having restricted the provision, we really should say shall rather than may. I entirely understand the objection to that made by the Minister in the courteous hearing that she gave us, but that objection would surely be coped with if we had a more restrictive definition of desirable activities. As time is short, I shall move on from that point.
	The third issue concerns landowners and farmers; there was a close vote in another place on it. The plain fact is that all organisations such as the scouts and the guides, as well as those that provide for schools that want to visit farms, can operate only with the good will of the farming community. I cannot see whythis does not have to follow the exact wording promoted in the House of Lordswe cannot have an element of clause 1, or indeed an extra clause, that specifically provides comparable comfort for those who make their land available for such activities.
	The fourth and final point was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald). We must consider the possibility of including a specific measure to address the issue of those who disobey instructions or behave manifestly recklessly. As my hon. Friend pointed out, that is important for people who run leisure parks and provide opportunities for youngsters to do adventurous things professionally, but it is even more so for those who do so in a voluntary context. If somebody deliberately sets out to disobey an instruction and brings a serious accident on themselves, that should be a stronger defence than it appears to be now, as the Gaping Gill incident all too sadly illustrates. If somebody is drunk or drugged, the same point should apply. I am glad that the Field Studies Council supports that move.
	This is a good measureI have confined my remarks to the first two clausesand it is one that most hon. Members support. I strongly urge the Government to consider strengthening the first clause so that it provides even clearer protection for those who provide opportunities, frequently on an unpaid basis, for young people to test the boundaries and grow as individuals in a structured way that is not necessarily safe, but is sensibly balanced in terms of risk. That is what they need if they are to grow up without feeling the need to take the sort of risks that none of us wants to see them take.

Michael Clapham: As I said, there is a clear distinction between trade unions and claims farmers. The solicitor in the case that we are discussing failed to give the expected standard of professional service. Payments were made to the trade union, which had asked its solicitors to ensure that a form of authority was signed by claimants. I do not excuse that, but the solicitors should have explained that claimants could go to another firm of solicitors that did not seek payment. The fact that that was not explained makes the solicitors culpable.
	There is a very big difference between claims farmers and trade unions, as I shall explain by reference to a couple of cases in my constituency. Lots of elderly people live there, and many are the widows of miners. One lady, Mrs. Leadbeater, was approached by a claims farming organisation using a name that gave the impression that it was linked to the trade union movement or to the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation. That is a common practice, and one of which I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware.
	In this instance, the claims farmer called itself the Miners Welfare Compensation Agency Ltd. It approached Mrs. Leadbeater about her claim, and she thought that she was dealing with a legitimate organisation related in some way to CISWO. The agency took the claim and passed it to a firm of solicitors in Manchester called Lopian Wagner. When the claim was settled, Mrs. Leadbeater found that 9,000 had been deducted from her damages and paid on to the claims farmer.
	When a claims farmer works with a solicitor, a very complex situation is created. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) got involved in the case and, with the help of one of the BBC's local political programmes, we forced the solicitors involved to pay back the money. We advised Mrs. Leadbeater to take her case to another solicitor, which she did. She took action against the original solicitors through the Law Society, and the matter eventually went before a Law Society disciplinary committee. As a result, that firm of solicitors were fined and had to pay 1,800 for the trauma that it had caused to my constituent.
	Another example from my constituency involved a company called Zuco Legal Ltd. As often happens, that company came into being simply to exploit problems in mining communities. It garnered 5,000 claims, and then wrote around to various firms of solicitors. One of those firms was Towells of Wakefield, which passed to me the letter that it received from Zuco.
	Zuco succeeded in selling on the claims that it had gathered, although I emphasise that Towells would have nothing to do with the proposal. Zuco sold those claims on at 400 or 500 per claim, although we do not know the exact figure. It made 2.25 million and then disappeared from the scene. That is the sort of problem that has occurred in mining communities.
	I hold to the point that there is a clear difference between claims farmers and trade unions. I accept that some trade unions may have behaved less well than one would have expected, but that does not alter the fact that, in the case mentioned by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), it was the solicitor who failed to provide the level of service generally expected of a solicitor.

Michael Clapham: Let me deal with that point. The right hon. Gentleman may not be aware that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) has mentioned before, a deal was done with the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, which had a separate arrangement. It was not offered to other trade unions in the industry, though it was offered later when some trade unions had abandoned their in-house legal services. Consequently, certain areas of the NUM went into an arrangement with solicitors whereby a payment would be passed from them back to the NUM on the basis that a form of authority would first be completed. I would have thought that, in that context, the onus was on the solicitor acting for the trade union to advise the client that he could go down the street to a firm of solicitors that would not charge him. The fact that the solicitors did not do that makes them culpable. It is not the trade union, but the solicitors who are at fault. We must also understand the reason why the problem came about. It happened, as I said, because of preferential treatment being given to some miners unions and not to others.
	Moving on to part 2, its purpose is to bring some form of regulation to claims farmers. Where the claimant has a relationship with a trade union, we have been able to ensure that the Law Society acts for them. I have referred many complaints to the Law Society, most of which were dealt with, bringing redress to claimants who could claim back the money held by law firms to pay for the services provided by the claims farmer. I continue to hold to my point that there is a clear distinction between the trade unions and claims farmers. One or two trade unions may not have provided the service that they should have, but that should not be used to tarnish the whole trade union movement. In my estimation, the trade union movement has been a force for good.
	I now come on to the Barker case and the Minister's comments about it. It is essential to overturn the Barker judgment and to go back to the law as established in the Fairchild case. In that case, it was clearly established that the responsible employer or insurer had to pay full damages to claimants suffering from exposure to asbestos and mesothelioma. I believe that we must return to that principle and hope that the Minister will table a Government amendment in Committee to achieve it.
	There has been a marked increase in mesothelioma claims over the last 40 years.
	For example, in 1966, there were just 153 claimants; today, there are almost 2,000 diagnoses of mesothelioma cancer each year, and the prediction is that the number will increase. The Health and Safety Executive's latest projection is that it is likely to peak in about 2015, reach a plateau and then taper away by 2050. However, one authorityan investigative journalist, a man by the name of Peter Martin, who wrote an article in  The Sunday Times Magazine of 16 May 2004has estimated from his research that 186,000 deaths are likely between 2000 and 2050, as a result of exposure to asbestos. So it is essential that we return to the law as set by the Fairchild ruling.
	A little earlier in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd), I referred to the fact that, under the Barker decision, people could not make a claim under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979, and I did so because of a legal opinion that I received by e-mail from a QC by the name of Allan Gore, who practises at 12 King's Bench Walk. I shall read the pertinent part for the Minister:
	In Barker no answer is offered to the question. But if fair in Fairchild, why is it not fair now? Surely the answer cannot simply depend on what was argued in each case? Victims will now obtain only partial damages in many cases. This leaves cases outside the 1979 Act so that safety net is not available.
	That is why I have referred to the fact that redress under the 1979 Act would not be available, but the Minister has been advised that it would be available.
	I have no doubt that the Government could say that redress is available under the 1979 Act for claimants to make such claims, but I can understand the logic that has decided that the 1979 Act is not available for that purpose. One of the planks of the Barker decision was that, if people were unable to identify one of the employers for whom they worked, their damages would be reduced accordingly. The 1979 Act provides for claims to be made where an employer has either gone out of business or cannot be traced, or there is no insurer. So it logically follows that, given the Barker decision, there could be no claim under the 1979 Act. If that is the legal decision, the Government must ensure that the route to redress under the 1979 Act stays open.
	Overall, this is a good Bill. It will deal effectively with claims farmers and allow us to introduce some regulation and order, and by doing so, we will avoid people being exploited in the way that they have been exploited in mining communities.

Jeremy Wright: I declare an interest as a non-practising barrister, although not in the field of personal injury or negligence. I want to say a few words about part 2, which I welcome, and then to say a little more about part 1. I am certain that part 2 is an entirely appropriate and necessary measure, which will introduce some consistency and ensure that claims farmers are treated in the same way as lawyers and insurers. That is entirely welcome. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), I hope that that there will be full consistency, and that trade unions will be included in the general consensus.
	As the House has heard, the Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, has considered the Bill in some detail and concluded in its investigation that there is no compensation culture. There is broad agreement not only about that, but about the fact that there is a perception of a compensation culture. In my view, that is almost as bad. That perception is widespread and profoundly damaging, as other hon. Members have said. Claims management companies have contributed substantially to that perception, and that is one of the many good reasons for regulating their behaviour. The Government wish to go further to address the apparent perception that there is a compensation cultureand that brings me to part 1 of the Bill.
	There is no doubt that the perception of a compensation culture must be challenged and changed, because it is doing a great deal of damage. Of course it is right that if somebody suffers injury or loss as a result of negligence they should receive compensation for their loss. That is clear, and it is the law, but it seems to me that a sense that there is no longer any such thing as a straightforward accident for which no one is to blame, and that someone is always to be held financially accountable, is corrosive.
	It is clear that people are not rushing to the courts to pursue claims. That is what the evidence shows us, but it is also clear that many of those who operate voluntary organisations and the like still have a profound fear that they might do that, and that fear has to be addressed by the House. That fear is important because it inhibits activities which are not only enjoyable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) has described, but can be extremely valuable for the economy. That is important, because clause 1 is about persuading people that the position is as the Government argue it to be.
	The law does not prohibit someone from operating a voluntary organisation or running a scout troop or adventure training organisation or anything like it, but the law will consider someone's behaviour, and if it is reasonable and they have taken appropriate measures to ensure that risks are limited, they will not be liable. However, that is not the perception. The perception is that if people run an event, they may be liable. That is important, because the effect is difficult to measure. When we look at the figures, we can see whether accident claims have gone up or down. That is quantifiable, but we cannot quantify the things that do not happenall the decisions taken by teachers not to run a school trip, or by youth club organisers not to undertake a potentially dangerous activity that they fear may leave them liable to legal action. There is an area of undisclosed and undeterminable activity that is not happening, and that is the real root of the problem.
	There is no doubt that that non-activity is real. This is a genuine and far-reaching problem. I do not want, and I am sure that other hon. Members do not want, to live in a society where in some activities that our children pursue in their education it is made impossible for them to fail, while they are told that other activities are too risky for them even to try. If we pursue that sort of scenario, we will discourage our potential entrepreneurs and scientists from trying the type of activities that inevitably involve risk, but without which progress cannot be made in a competitive economic environment. That is the kind of Britain that I fear we are moving towards, not because of a reality but because of a perception.
	I support wholeheartedly the Government's intention and aspiration to address that perception, but I have severe doubts whether clause 1 is the way in which we should go about doing so. My basic principle is that if we can do something better without making extra legislation, we should do so. That is something that will be explored as the Bill progresses through the House. I wonder whether the Government can achieve what they, quite properly, want to achieve other than by constructing something like clause 1. Clause 1, as the Government have made perfectly clear, restates the law. In their view it does not change the law, although I appreciate that some hon. Members disagree with that assessment. The Government believe that clause 1 is about expressing the law more clearly and making clear to everyone who has an interest in this area of the law exactly what it says.
	What the Government really need to do is to get that message across to the people likely to be affected by the law, but the way to do it is not with a clause in a new piece of legislation, which will hardly come immediately to the attention of people engaged in voluntary activities, or who run scout troops, adventure training or anything of that nature. Those people will want to hear directly from the Government what their responsibilities are and what they are liable for. That is a communication job; it is an exercise in getting the message across. It isdare I say it?a public relations exercise. If there was ever a job for the Government, that must be it. However, given all the problems that have been outlined about clause 1, all the difficulties of defining precisely what a desirable activity is and all the possible downsides that we have discussed, could we not do things in another way? I hope that in the course of the debate we shall consider that point more carefully.
	To be fair to the Government, they have accepted that they cannot simply rely on clause 1 to get across the message that the compensation culture is a myth and that people should not change their behaviour as a result of that myth. There is clearly much more to be done. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire, I referred to activities that are not covered by clause 1 and which relate to the Health and Safety Executive. There is much work to be done in that regard. If the Government are to succeed in persuading those who operate in the voluntary sector and elsewhere that they are not liable to penalties, in the form either of prosecution by the HSE or of a case brought by someone injured in an accident, they will have to consider not only the civil law but also the criminal law, and ensure that the HSE gives clear guidance about what people are safely able and entitled to do.
	I hope that the Government will go further and consider the work of the HSE and make sure that the guidance it issues is clear, and does not change behaviour in undesirable ways.

John Mann: I intend to ask a number of questions of the Minister and the House, and I hope that people will take them into consideration as the Bill progresses. I will address each question by illustrating what I am talking about with an example from the mother of all gravy trains, the scamming of money from miners. I pay tribute to more than 1,000 of my constituents who have already taken actionmany of them successfullyagainst more than 35 firms of solicitors and a whole range of claims handlers.
	The first example involves a claims handler called IDC. Many of my constituents signed a form that said that IDC would pay the costs of the claim. It even contained a clause about what would happen if the claimant deliberately misled the company. In fact, the opposite happened. A firm of solicitors called Gorman Hamilton got the claim from IDC and wrote to my constituents to say:
	You, as our client, are liable for our costs but, as you know IDC Ltd have agreed to pay them on your behalf.
	That was not true. The Government were paying the costs. It was a scheduled case. There were never any costs being paid by IDC. Here we have a conspiracy between a solicitor and a claims handler. My question for the Government is: what will happen with that conspiracy if there are different agencies regulating the claims handler and the solicitor? That is the nub of the issue.
	I have some minutes from the national marketing meeting of IDC. Oxley and Coward solicitors, Park Hutchison solicitors, Marrons solicitors, Whittle Robinson solicitors, and Russell Young solicitors were all at that meeting. IDC went through the importance of knowing the needs of solicitors and what they consider good referrals, of looking at the screening processes and of the personal touch. Mention is made of MTFS or make them feel special. That is with reference to the clients. Mention is also made of:
	The introduction of a theme to build on in order to provoke a response and to attract and hold the favourable attention of the prospect whilst the selling message is being told.
	There is a discussion of whether to use a shotgun or a rifle approach to the marketing of the product.
	The question of collusion between solicitors and claims handlers is at the heart of the issue. Under the heading of questions raised from the floor, the minutes state:
	With this strategy in place expect clients to cross from Union Solicitor to IDC.
	That was the aim of that marketing meeting. The question of the two culprits together is important.
	The second example involves PR and Associates. Again, a number of my constituents signed a common law claim form, headed Common Law Claims. The offer was that the costs would be covered for a common law claim, and the claimant would pay 15 per cent. plus VAT in return. That sounds fair, but of course, those were not common law claims, despite the fact the Kidd and Spoor Harper said:
	In accordance with... your Agreement...we have deducted
	the fee to PR and Associates from the claim. Here we have the solicitor doing the work on behalf of the claims handler. There is a cast iron case against the solicitor, but how will that be affected in terms of how the claims handler is regulated?
	The third example involves Union and General Services. It is the same old thing. The contract says that the company will pay the costs of the fee. This time the firm of solicitors is called Robinson King, and 3,284 was deducted in this particular case. The letter states:
	you are funded by Union  General Services...I enclose a copy of the signed agreement...I have forwarded this cheque on to Union  General Services who will deduct their...fee and provide you with a cheque
	for the rest. How will that be dealt with? Money has passed wrongly to a third party.
	Separately, Union and General Services, which was a limited liability company, has gone into receivership. When we started to raise the issue, the company was closed down. How will the regulation affect such a scam company, which was set up by a Mr. Revell from Doncaster, a former union official? It was a pretence to call the company Union and General Services. Given that the company put itself into receivership, we would not be able to take a common-law case against it to the small claims court because it is no longer in existence. How will the ability of companies not to be pursued be dealt with?
	Another of my constituents, Mrs. Beckett, went to Raleys, a firm of solicitors that I have already named. She was told:
	NUM funding is available only through this firm.
	However, Mrs. Beckett did not go through the NUM, but contacted Raleys directly by using Yellow Pages. Despite that, she was told:
	You are of course at liberty to explore other types of funding arrangements, however we cannot guarantee that they will protect you from the need to pay any expenses or from the amount that your solicitor may recover from your compensation
	not true!
	I have a copy of the kind of publicity that Raleys puts out from a brochure produced by one of the health authorities. Raleys says, Millions won in compensation, and asks miners to come forward, but the publicity makes no mention of the NUM. However, when one goes to Raleys, as did another of my constituents, Mr. Dunstan, the situation becomes clearer. He was told:
	If you do not wish to take up the option of Union backing then it will be necessary for us to consider alternative funding arrangements. If you are not eligible for legal aid then it will be necessary to discuss funding your case by either private funding or through a conditional fee agreement.
	However, we should not forgetthe letter was written in 2000that the Government were paying the fees.
	The letter continues:
	If you choose to fund your claim on a private basis then you will be liable for the costs and disbursements of this firm in dealing with your claim. You will also be responsible for the opposition's costs, should you lose
	not true; it is a lie. The letter then sets out a statement on conditional fee arrangements and says:
	Please find enclosed a form of authority confirming the funding options which you would prefer.
	The TUC briefing for the debate makes the situation when dealing with unions clear. The vast majority of unions are decent organisations that deal with members who can get remedies in a range of ways. However, Mrs. Beckett was not a member of a union and Mr. Dunstan was a retired member. The situation was affecting non-members, not members, so remedies available for members, ranging from the certification officer to common law governed by statute, would not be available. Precisely how would that be addressed?
	Of course, we have also heard about another union: the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. I have lots of similar forms that contain such phrases as:
	I will pay ... a fee ... to cover the cost of pursuing this Claim.
	However, that should not be the case. One of the dilemmas is that although the majority of people went through solicitors, so the Law Society would be involved, some did not. That is precisely why I intervened on the Minister to ask about the Government's ongoing three agreements with UDM Vendside. There are no solicitors involved and no consumer right is available. The people involved have never been to court or had dealings with solicitors before. Many of them are in their 80s and 90s, and their only remedy is to go to court to get justice, but that does not appeal greatly to people of that age.
	There is far more to the situation. I have a form from a Mrs. Cocker. The Vendside bit of the form has been covered by a sticker for Walker and Co., which is not known to my constituent. An individual employee of Vendside and the UDM had set up a different company. That company then takes a cut. I know that because I have a copy of the minutes of a UDM meeting in January 2002 between Beresfords solicitors, the UDM leader, Mr. Stevens, and Clare WalkerWalker and Co. The minutes explain in graphic detail who gets what cut of the money. There is a range of information detailing what Beresfords, Vendside and Clare Walker will be getting. The minutes also cite a company called Melex that is being set up, 90 per cent. of which is owned by the Beresford family.
	Letters between Beresfords and the Law Society have come into my possession. Beresfords has been asking, in essence, how it can get around the Law Society rules on referral fees. They ask, Can we set up a third party? They do not call it Melex, but Melex comes into existence. Who should get paid? Obviously, the Beresford family get some money, but so does Clare Walker. But it goes on, because then there is the conditional fee arrangement, and insurance. In some cases, Beresfords hands matters on to another firm of solicitorsits panelwhich themselves pay a fee back to Beresfords. In a hearing loss claim, there could be five or six different deductions. There is an amount for the ATE Insurance commissionthe minutes say who is going to get a bit of that. There is the Melex money. There are the vetting, administration and marketing fees.
	That leads me to my key point. It is very easy to set up new companies to get round the guidelines. In other words, people say, It's not a referral feethat's not allowed under Law Society rules. It's a marketing fee. It is only when someone manages to get all sorts of files that they see that lots of people are doing the same work. Walker and Co. was doing the marketing; Vendside was doing the marketing; Beresfords was doing the marketing. Oh, and there is another firm, Indiclaim, which was doing the marketing as well. There are lots of different people doing the marketing. We must ensure that these dodges are not allowed.
	I understand that some of these companies are now charging money for training. Training has nothing to do with my constituents. There are different ways of skinning the cat and getting the money. Another firm of solicitors, BRM, is paying 500 plus VAT to Indiclaim. Another one, Wake Smith, has done a better deal, as it has to pay only 300 plus VAT to Indiclaim. My constituents have never heard of Indiclaim Ltd. They do not realise that it is owned by one of the people running Vendside, which is owned by the UDM. We must ensure that people cannot wriggle out of regulation. It is essential that the Government use the opportunity of their agreement with the UDM to look into the matter in graphic detail.
	The Law Society is quoted in the legal services ombudsman's report as saying:
	it is not clear what (if anything) Vendside and/or the UDM did pursuant to the Vendside Agreements in respect of the fee paid.
	What they did was set up lots of other companies. My constituent Annie Robinson, aged 93, gets 352.50, which she struggles to get back either from the solicitor or from Vendside. That is simply not acceptable.
	It is essential that we act now, and do not wait until the Bill comes into force. The scandal of the miners' compensation is going on at the moment. These people need consumer rights now, because the Raleys, the Vendsides and the plethora of other firms who have been ripping people off should be held to accountand if solicitors who are claims handlers are struck off, the Government should cancel their agreement with the UDM.

David Jones: I wish to declare an interest as a member of the Law Society. Like Members on both sides of the House I warmly welcome the Bill, particularly part 2, although I do have reservations about part 1 which I will touch on later.
	Regulation of the activities of these so-called claims farmersan expression which appears to have supplanted the traditional ambulance chasersis long overdue. Whether or not there is a compensation culture in this country is a matter of debate, and it has been debated today. The Better Regulation Task Force took the view firmly that it was a myth, and certainly it appears that costs in negligence actions in this country are considerably lower than those in the United States, France, Germany, Australia or other major jurisdictions. Nevertheless, there is, as appears to be widely accepted, at least a perception of a compensation culture, and that is having a significant and detrimental effect on the national life of this country.
	The compensation culture, if it is not a reality, appears to be something that the claims farmers are aimed at creating. We have seen their marketing campaigns. We have seen also their slogans, such as, Where there is blame, there is a claim. These slogans are clearly intended, aggressively, to encourage the pursuit of actions for personal injury. Such advertising can frequently raise unrealistic expectations in the minds of vulnerable people.
	Since legal aid was abolished in 1999 for personal injury claims, the no-win, no- fee regime that has replaced it has made it more difficult for potential litigants, particularly those who are less sophisticated than others and therefore more vulnerable, to obtain legal redress. It is unfortunate that it is precisely those peoplemore vulnerable potential claimantswhom the claim farmers seek to attract. Perhaps the expression prey upon might be more appropriate.
	I am sad to say that the more vulnerable in our society find the prospect of approaching a solicitor intimidating. They find the prospect of making a free telephone call to a claims farmer a more attractive option. Once the potential litigant is in the clutches of the claims farmer, it is often difficult for them to get out.
	The abuses of claims farmers have been catalogued this afternoon. As time is short and because other Members wish to speak, I will not rehearse them. There is no doubt that regulation of the industry is a matter of priority and one that is long overdue. I congratulate the Government on bringing legislation forward.
	The activity of claims farmers has its consequences. Their pursuit of the creation of a compensation culture has created an increasingly risk averse society. We have heard the stories of school teachers and scout leaders who have been dissuaded from taking young people in their charge out on what would be valuable and character-building expeditions.
	Many years ago, when I was considerably younger, I used to go rock climbing. I did it because I enjoyed the risk. When one is clinging 100 ft up on a rock face, it is difficult to think of anything other than maintaining that position on the rock face. I would not begin to pretend that I was in any sense a Chris Bonington, but I enjoyed the experience. I was taken into the mountains by a guide called Terry, but I wonder whether these days Terry would be so willing to take me to the mountains. He has probably heard about the culture of where there is blame, there is a claim and he might well be dissuaded from doing so.
	I believe that that is happening. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) of the experiences that have been related to him. This is sad. Risk is a fact of life; we take risks every day. Risk is good and it develops character. If we are being dissuaded from taking risks by the activities of claims farmers, we need to deal with the culture that they are generating.
	I applaud the aims of the Government in bringing forward part 1. I understand what they are trying to do. They are trying to deal with the risk aversion that has been built up. They are trying to provide what I imagine is a statutory defence, based upon what they say is common law as it now exists.
	Clause 2 is an extremely valuable component of the Bill. I congratulate Lord Hunt for ensuring that the provision was introduced into the Bill. I similarly congratulate the Government on accepting Lord Hunt's valuable amendment and incorporating it into the Bill. It achieves a number of things. It deals with the simple issue of courtesy. If someone has caused damage or injury to another individual, in a courteous society he should be encouraged to apologise. As we have heard, he is frequently inhibited from doing so, because that may amount to an admission.
	The problem extends even further, as we have heard. The clause will give insurers the opportunity to pay for a certain amount of treatment for people who are injured. The fact that that treatment is paid for will give considerable solace to the claimants but, in due course, it will reduce the value of claims that are made and ultimately reduce insurance premiums across the board.
	I am concerned, however, about clause 1. I applaud its aim of seeking to ensure that the courts pay regard to the question of whether certain steps should have been taken by defendants or whether it would be unreasonable to expect them to take them. However, it is poorly drafted and, if we are not careful, it will become a fertile source of litigation in future. The application of the clause by the courts when considering such cases is not mandatory but permissive. The word, may, is used, but shall, is preferable, because it would give the lower courts the guidance that they need, ensuring that they consider the matters dealt with in the clause. However, the drafting is loosethere are references to particular steps and a particular way, but the glaring omission is the nature of a desirable activity. What does desirable mean? There is reference to
	undertaking functions in connection with a desirable activity.
	What are those functions? The thrust of the clause is sensible and desirable.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I welcome the Bill, as it tries to stem the development of a compensation culture and deal with risk aversion. It seeks, too, to discourage and resist bad or unwarranted claims while improving the system for people with a valid compensation claim.
	I welcome the fact that the Bill will establish a regulatory scheme to control runaway claims management companies, but I share concerns with the TUC about clauses 1 and 2. I thank the Government for their recent statements acknowledging those issues, and I congratulate the Minister on her opening speech, which addressed some of my concerns. The TUC is worried that the wording of clause 1 requires a worker injured in a desirable activity to prove a higher degree of negligence than a worker who suffers the same injury in a different activity, leading to the creation of a two-tier system in which workers engaged in desirable activities receive one standard of care while other workers receive a different one. The Government have said that the clause will not alter the standard of care required of employers, and I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that. As other hon. Members have mentioned, there are also concerns that it is not entirely clear what constitutes a desirable activity. It would be helpful if that could be clarified in Committee.
	I support the measures to restrict the compensation culture. Over the past five years there have been many abuses by claims farmers. Many of those companies actively encourage frivolous claims, combined with misleading advertisements targeted at certain parts of the countryareas where there was heavy industry. I represent a constituency in Durham where such companies have targeted their activities at former miners. Still, even though we acknowledge that, we cannot and must not compromise the protections afforded to our workers.
	I share the concern of the TUC that in clause 2 it would be wrong to group trade unions with the ferocious claims management companies. I declare an interest. I am a member of the GMB and have been very active in the union for some time. I wish to put that interest on record.
	I have recently been reading some of the speeches from the first parliamentary Labour party a century ago. It is interesting that those early speeches in the House were in defence of trade unions. They also reminded Conservative Members of the advantages of belonging to a trade union. It is extraordinary that we have to do that today.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I shall deal with that point in a moment. We should not forget that unions are constantly working to prevent the injuries that lead to claims in the first place. That is a very important distinction between trade unions and claims farmers. Whereas such companies choose to maximise profits, trade unions seek to maximise protection for their members and my constituents.
	Trade unions represent more people making personal injury claims than any other body, so it is important that unions are not undermined in the eyes of their members by being lumped together with disreputable claims companies. Trade unions do need regulation, and I shall deal with that. The TUC has outlined a number of reasons why union legal services are usually completely different from claims farmers. First, unions are already heavily regulated. Secondly, when a member makes a claim, the union will work for a fair settlement, often to keep medical and legal costs to a minimum. Thirdly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) said, unions' primary task is to protect their members. Fourthly, unions link the work that they do on compensation with work on prevention. Fifthly, unions do not automatically steer their members towards claiming compensation from their employer: many union claims are made to state compensation funds, which is an entirely legitimate task.
	It is for those reasons that unions and certain not-for-profits need a specific exemption in the Bill. I applaud the Government's statement that they will be afforded an exemption in regulations, but it is important that in drawing those up it is clear that trade unions have to operate within a code of practice, and that if they act like claims farmers, they must be treated as such. I am sure that all hon. Members would accept that.
	I want to say a few words about the Barker ruling on mesothelioma victims, which has acted very much against their interests. The Government have called it disappointing and pledged to consider a response to it. I urge them to respond soon. In my opinion, the judgment fails to recognise the realities of the problems that the victims are facing. It is often impossible for them to show which particular employer caused the disease, so several previous employers are thrown into the frame. The former Association of British Insurers scheme dealt with that complexity, but that is no longer possible. It is impractical for the claimant to trace everyone concerned, especially because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) observed, they often have only a short time to live after the disease has been identified.
	It is important that the Barker ruling does not influence the judgment that we are awaiting on pleural plaques. Like many MPs who represent ex-mining areas, several people who come to my surgeries suffer from such diseases, and we must ensure that they are protected. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to take action as soon as possible.

David Howarth: I should start by declaring an interest, in that I still receive the occasional royalty for the books on this subject that I wrote several years ago. However, I am not a member of the Law Society or a barrister. I completely agree with the speeches by my fellow Constitutional Affairs Committee members, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright). Perhaps my speech will be seen as a technical footnote to theirs.
	I want to concentrate on my worries about clause 1. Part 2 has been entirely justified by the tales that we have heard today about the extraordinary cases of claims farming in the mining areas. The problem with clause 1 concerns the perception that there is a high risk of being sued when it is not justified. I hope that the people on the other side of the debate who support clause 1 will accept that there are circumstances in which it is justified for one person to be sued by another. When one person is injured by another person's foot, there should be a high risk of the person who did the injuring having to pay compensation. That is just and right; it also serves the social purpose of reducing the risk of unreasonable action causing harm.
	The perception arises from two sourceslegal error and excessive litigation. I will deal with legal error in a moment, but everyone now seems to accept that there is no compensation culture in the sense that the number of claims being made in any part of society are rising fastthey are not. In fact, in most parts of the legal world the number of tort claims is falling.
	Interestingly, there is evidence that the number of claims must have risen rather dramatically between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, when the figures became more widely availablebetween the Pearson report and the time when national figures became available through the recovery unit. Oddly, during the period when the number of claims apparently increased, no one seemed to complain about the compensation culture, whereas in an era when the number of claims is falling, complaints about it are common.

Julian Brazier: The fact is that these cases do not occur only occasionally; the problem is that they keep on arising. The scouts are one of the few voluntary organisations that have the resources to fight such cases. If clause 1 is strengthened, as I and others have argued, so that it states shall rather than may, and it is clear that Parliament wants to point specifically to sport and adventure training and related activities such as educational trips, that will at least send a signal to judges of the relevant calibre.

David Howarth: I agree that leaflets would be very useful, but I cannot see what extra good having a new clause provides, apart from its being a starting point for a press release. My main problem with the Bill is that it seems to use statute as a press release; I would rather use a press release than a statute.
	Clause 1 makes the law less flexible. The idea that there is a benefit in fixing the law is the opposite of the truth. The fundamental benefit of the common law is that it uses ideas, rather than specific formulae of words. Formulae can become out of date but ideas do not; putting things in statute can make matters worse, not better.
	The risk on the other side of the equation is that there will be further litigation. The hon. Member for Canterbury asked: how can that be, given that this is supposed to be a protective clause? The answer is that there will be more appeals, and more cases will be fought in court in the first place, rather than settled, because the law will be unclear. It must be made absolutely clear why that is the case.
	The phrase desirable activity, as contained in clause 1, is ambiguous. Because of how the law currently works, there are two ways in which an activity can be desirable. It can be desirable privatelypeople pay for it and therefore want itand publicly, in the sense that it gives benefits to society as whole that are not captured by individuals. The crucial question will be: does the new phrase include either or both those types of benefit? It will take a long time for that very basic point to get through the courts. The benefits of the new clause, which are very minor, are outweighed by its risks and costs. In terms of the law of negligence, putting forward this new clause is itself negligent in the classic sense.
	I want to finish by making three points, the first of which has already been made but needs to be re-emphasised. The Health and Safety Executive is the bigger part of the problem of the perception of a compensation culture, and of the fear of organising voluntary events, than is the civil law. I do not know whether the Bill is the right place in which to deal with that problem, but it must be dealt with.

Derek Wyatt: I have sent my apologies for not being here for the Minister's opening remarks. I want to register that I am a trustee of TimeBank, the largest volunteer organisation in Britain. Before 6 July last year, we were asked to do a volunteering exercise for the Olympics. We registered over 70,000 volunteers before 6 July, when we won the games. We have registered substantially more since. We will have approximately 85,000 to 100,000 volunteers in 2012. What correspondence has there been between the Minister, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Lord Coe on whether clause 1 will cover more than 100,000 volunteers? The Olympics will be a high security event and we will be asking volunteers to give up their time. I am not absolutely certain that, as it stands, they will be covered.
	I would also like to register that I am an ambassador for the Girl GuidesI shall return to the movement in a momentand that I am co-chair, with the hon. Members for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik), of the all-party group on the matter. The noble Baroness Ashton has given the group exceptional timemore than four hoursto examine clause 1 in huge detail. The Minister also saw us recently and I thank her for that. We cannot complain about the time and access we have had, but we would like the Government to think about will and shall, which the hon. Member for Canterbury mentioned.
	I want to mention the iceberg effect. A dear friend who gave evidence in confidence has a small castle. One particular American tourist went over a rough bridge in stiletto heels, and guess what? She twisted her ankle, and sued the owner of the castle. And guess what? Because the owner of the castle is a reasonably famous person, they did not want the law suit and settled out of court for 8,000. This is completely and utterly obscene.
	The scouts, guides, yachtsmen and the Territorial Army are sick to death of going to court and spending 15,000 to 100,000 a case; that money is gone but they have had to spend it. The Chancellor has asked for a volunteer community; we want over 500,000 volunteers over the next ten years. We have to secure the legal framework for these people.
	When I went to Oxford as a very old man, a wonderful chap called Andy Widdowson broke his neck playing rugby. When he broke his neck, his parents did not sue the referee, the college, the rugby club or the Rugby Football Union; they were just concerned about the well-being of their son. We were, too, and we raised over 60,000 for him, in 1981 figures. In Wales recently, a boy aged 15 broke his neck playing rugby. Whom did the parents sue? Was it the Welsh Rugby Union? No; amazingly. Was it the Welsh Schools Rugby Union? No; extraordinarily. Was it the school? No. Was it the coach? No. It was the referee, and they won. This is ridiculous and absurd. We have to allow risk in life and we have to find a way in clause 1 to cover exercise.
	We have all talked about obesity rates and there is 70 per cent. less activity among schoolchildren than there was 30 years ago. How on earth are we going to solve that if we do not solve the risk element of clause 1? That is fundamental.
	Remember, the girl guides have 600,000 members, and there are 50,000 girls on the waiting list because it needs 8,000 more volunteers. There are not the volunteers to come forward for the girl guides, which is crackersabsolutely nuts. We must resolve this issue in clause 1.
	Finally, the hon. Member for Canterbury and I have looked at the American states, Western Australia and so on. Philosophically, at some other stage, we must come back and redefine what we mean by national insurance. We established it in the 1940s, and it is inappropriate for a modern society not to take a legal position on insurance for covering volunteers.

Kevan Jones: I rise to support strongly this important and long overdue Bill. In particular, I want to direct my remarks to part 2, which will regulate claim farmers. In my constituency, they are preying on the vulnerable and weak.
	I also put on record my thanks to the Minister and her civil service team for how they have engaged with me and other constituency Members who are dealing with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease claims and have experience of claim farmers in relation to the framing of the Bill.
	I want to concentrate on three points. The first is the need to regulate claim farmers, and the second is who should be the regulator. The final point relates to the legislation covering, in particular, the reference to trade unions and solicitors.
	Claim farmers are simple middle men and nothing more. In my constituencymy hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) has already referred to thisfirms have been created simply for the purpose of raping the CPOD scheme. People have been forced to sign agreements they do not understand, and claim farmers have also made bogus claims in advertisements. Also, when they have been talking to people, they have given the impression that they are solicitors or legally qualified when clearly they are not.
	Some of the most disgraceful individuals are former National Union of Mineworkers activists, who are working for these claim farmers. They have tried to blur the edges with the implication that they are somehow still connected with legitimate trade unions. I deplore those former activists, who have thrown their lot in with greedy claim farmers and clearly have prostituted any principles that they had, simply to make a quick buck for themselves and their new employers.
	I want to refer to two cases in my brief contribution. My hon. Friend has already referred to IDC, or FreeClaim IDC, as it is now called, which is a claim handling firm that was set up in the last 10 years and is based in Ashington, Northumberland. I want to refer to a case that involves Mr. Jobes, my constituent, who was approached by the firm and filled in an agreement with it. It did what all claim handling firms did, and passed his case on. It went to a Liverpool-based firm called Silverbeck Rymer.
	At the conclusion of the case, Silverbeck Rymer deducted 3,600 of the compensation given to Mr. Jobes and passed it on to IDC to cover IDC's costs. As my hon. Friend has already said, no costs were involved in the case because the Government paid them all. IDC and Silverbeck Rymer knew that at the time. My problem was how to address that.
	I could not go for IDC because it is not regulated, so I went after Silverbeck Rymer through the Law Society. I pay tribute to the case officer who dealt with this. In a highly critical judgment, the adjudicator said of the case:
	I have concluded that they
	that is, Silverbeck Rymer
	did not explain matters to Mr. Jobes so that he could properly understand the funding arrangements and he was not, therefore, in a position to give informed consent to the deductions made.
	The key point, which my hon. Friend also made, is that those claim farmers could not have operated without collusion with solicitors. Mr. Jobes could not have been defrauded or robbed without the collusion of Silverbeck Rymer with a claims handler.
	I challenge the Law Society to examine Silverbeck Rymer's books, as well as those of every single solicitor who has had dealings with IDC, to see how much they have deducted and force them to pay it back. That is the only way to ensure that those people get justice. I will follow up that challenge and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can assist.
	Firms are not being honest with people about the courses of action open to them, such as help from legitimate trade unions that do not charge anything or home insurance policies. Under the scheme, there is no reason why any legitimate law firm should charge clients a single penny.
	I also welcome the removal of the regulation of claims from the industry. The Claims Standards Council was a joke, although it tried to claim that it was an independent adjudicator. FreeClaim IDC was on the councilthe same company that defrauded and robbed my constituent, Mr. Jobes.
	It has been argued that trade unions should be excluded from regulation by the Bill, but I do not agree. Most trade unions, which are ethical and well run, should not be constrained by burdensome regulation. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw has already pointed out that the UDM, which has been running a claims farm operation, would not be covered if we excluded all trade unions.
	It saddens me to say that Thompson's, a trade union solicitor, is doing the same thing, in league with the Durham NUM. The firm sent all MPs a briefing note this week asking us to argue for trade unions to be excluded, which states:
	Trade unions should be specifically excluded from regulation in Part 2. The suggestion that unions will be excluded as long as they can show that they comply with certain conditions is an unnecessary and overly complex formulation.
	But in Durham Thompson's has been involved in a con. Individuals with COPD claims, many of whom have never been members of the NUMsuch as widows or other relativeshave been asked to join as associate members for 20 a year. That moneyand some cases go on for five or more yearsdoes not give them many rights and they are not covered by the certification officer rules. People pay the 20, fill the form in and it is then passed to Thompson's solicitors, so it appears to be a joining fee to access the scheme. Some people have been threatened that if they stop paying the 20, the action will be stopped.
	In addition, and even more scandalously, people have been asked to sign a form allowing 7.5 per cent. to be deducted from the final settlement. That money is not kept by Thompson's, because of course its costs are paid by the Government, but passed to the NUM. The agreement states that that is done to indemnify the individual against any costs, but we all know that there are no costs for the trade union or the lawyers, because the Government pay them. As in the Silverbeck Rymer case, the NUM is acting as a claims handler.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend on his tenacious work on the Raleys case. The judgment a few weeks ago stated clearly that Raleys was acting as a claims handler and could not justify the deductions that it had made and passed on to the NUM in Yorkshire, and I think that that also applies to Thompson's in Durham. I challenge Thompson's to pay back every penny that it has deducted from my constituents.
	One of the reasons given for deducting the money is that the NUM needs the money to pursue further claims and continue its activities. But under the scheme Thompson's alone has received 92 million in fees, 2.5 million of which was for constituents of mine. If further test claims are necessary or the NUM in Durham needs money to keep going, Thompson's should pay, instead of poor claimants, such as some of my constituents, who have struggled to understand the complexities of the scheme and been bemused by some of the sharp practices involved.
	I expect better from a company such as Thompson's. I dealt with it in my time as a trade union officer, and have the highest regard for it, but its actions in Durham are nothing short of a disgrace. The TUC should take steps immediately to ensure that the money is paid back.
	I welcome the claims handling regulations, as anyone who does not conform to the code of conduct will be classed as a claims handler. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) asked whether trade unions should be covered by the Bill if they act as claims handlers. I believe wholeheartedly that they should be.

Helen Goodman: I strongly support the Bill, because I believe that an increasingly litigious culture is destroying voluntary and community activities in this country. In particular, I want to speak in favour of part 1 of the Bill.
	I worked in the voluntary sector before I came to the House. My experience there, and with the community initiatives that my constituents in Bishop Auckland have tried to take, demonstrates to me that the fear of litigation and punitive levels of insurance deter small-scale but worthwhile activities.
	Many hon. Members will know that the annual miners' galathe Big Meetinghas been going for 121 years. Indeed, many will have taken part in that wonderful cultural festival, which is rooted in the history and traditions of mining in Durham and across the north. It begins early in the morning, when people in villages across the county march behind their own banner and band and listen to the miners' hymn. Then they get on the bus and go into Durham for the Big Meeting.
	This year, there will be a parade of 100 banners and bands. It will end at the race course, where people will listen to speeches and enjoy the fairground. The whole day is an affirmation of the human spirit. Life and leisure are not about shoppingthey are about history, music and the values of solidarity and community.
	The event is highly valued. In my constituency, the people of Spennymoor this year raised money for a new banner, which will be taken to the cathedral and blessed by the bishop. I am sure that the House will join me in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), whose portrait is on the banner.
	However, local village events are threatened by the dreaded compensation culture. A so-called health and safety expert belonging either to the county council or the policeI do not know which, because both organisations blame each otherhas said that, although the village parades last only 20 minutes, they must fulfil the appropriate requirements. That means that they must put up notices of road closures two or even three weeks before the event. Moreover, the notices must be made to a particular specification by a traffic management company, and they must be put up by trained operatives because of the alleged risks that crossing the road poses to ordinary citizens.
	The cost is proving to be astronomical. After last year's gala, I received a list of complaints from people throughout the county. The County Durham Association Of Local Councils carried out a survey, which found that the costs sometimes amounted to hundreds of pounds. For example, they came to 294 in Shildon, and to a staggering 1,580plus value-added tax!in Peterlee. As a result, 10 per cent. of villages have said that they have cancelled events already because of the problem, and 70 per cent. have said that the costs involved might dissuade them from holding an event in the future.
	There are many rural villages in the west of my constituency. They hold carnivals along traditional lines, and are facing the same problem. For example, at last year's remembrance service in Middleton in Teesdale, a veteran was told that she could not carry the Union jack because she was over 60 and would not be safe in the traffic.
	The Bill will be helpful because the present situation is unbalanced. Costs, problems and risks are taken into account, but not benefits. We are destroying not only enjoyable days, but communities. Communities are like families: they need to do things togetherthey need to meet to maintain social cohesion. We are in a crazy situation where we are paying people to set up community development offices and to run initiatives, while we are destroying the home-grown ones with that ridiculous culture.
	Given that other hon. Members want to speak, I will not talk about my other experiencesI will write to the Ministerbut I hope that, despite the blandishments of my colleagues, she will hold fast to the content of clauses 1 and 2.

David Anderson: It is a long time since we came in here. I was going to mention part 1, but I will not now, except to say that the phrase desirable activity could well include playing croquet, so a lot of issues need to clarified there. Indeed, it is a thriving sport in my area. I will focus very much on part 2 and want to say up front that I am proud and pleased to be standing here as someone who has been a member of the National Union of Mineworkers for 20 years . [ Interruption. ] Yes, hon. Members can cheerI do not mind. I am also an honorary life member of Unison.
	I welcome the fact that the Minister recognises that there is a serious difference between genuine trade unions doing their jobs for their members and claim farmers. To treat them the same would be little short of an insult, because the work done by trade unions in supporting their members in legal cases is in many ways the best example of voluntary work in this country.
	The vast majority of casesbelieve you me, I have been involved in literally hundreds of individual cases and thousands on a collective basisare begun by shop stewards or other local officials who carry out their roles professionally, without payment or reward, and they do so by being properly trained and accredited. Without their knowledge and skills, they could not do that job. Their work is part and parcel of the day in, day out work of representing their colleagues at work to the best of their ability. Most of them would be over the moon if they did not have to do that work, because that would mean that their members were not getting killed, maimed, injured or stressed out. Their members would not face a life of penury, illness and injustice Those people would not have to worry about how they will provide for their partners and children, about how they will pay their mortgages or about what the future would bring.
	As was said earlier, more than 64,000 new claims were laid through trade unionsthat is 64,000 men and women who face an uncertain future, and 64,000 cases that may not have been taken up, for the reasons given earlier by my hon. and good Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), if local trade unions had not supported those people through those very traumatic times.
	I am certainly not suggesting that those claims should go through a system with no controlI would never suggest that. Indeed, I believe that the present trade union legislation strictly controls the behaviour of trade unions in many ways. That is exactly what we are trying to do today. In those claim cases it is clearly necessary to use the legal profession. Those legal people are controlled by their professional society. If their society is not doing its business, as has been said today, perhaps that is the real issue that we should be debating in the House, not what trade unions are doing.
	There is a fundamental difference between people whose job in life is to rip people off and other people whose job in life is to represent people. Trade unions do not want to be involved in rip-off work; they do not want their members to be treated negligently or their lives to be ruined. Genuine trade unions do not want to play any part in the get-rich-quick operations that some of the rip-off merchants engage in. That is why trade unions put so much emphasis on health and safety legislationred tape as it is often disparagingly called in the Houseand why they campaign long and hard to get proper protection for their members at work.
	Trade unions do not want to such work on behalf of their membersto be honest, they do not really need itbut they will keep on doing it to defend their members as long as they are being abused at work. Legal cases are time-consuming, usually costly and drain resources, and they are in many ways a sign of failurethe failure of the employer to look after the worker properly, the failure of the unions to negotiate proper health and safety legislation and the failure of hon. Members to ensure that we provide a safe working environment for people.
	Union reps could spend their time and effort on much more productive and rewarding work, but they accept their responsibility and they do whatever it takes to help their members. There is no pleasure in winning compensation cases for members, except the knowledge that those members should be financially secure for the rest of their lives. But all the money in the world will not give workers their lives back.
	People who have lost limbs, people who have suffered from asbestos-related diseases or people burnt out with stress and workers with back problems or any of the multitude of problems that are dealt with day in, day out by trade union reps cannot turn back the clock just because a cheque drops through their letterbox.
	Unions are representatives acting for the collective good. They are a world away from get-rich-quick cowboys who are little better than ambulance chasers. They have experience in the workplace where their members work that lawyers will never be able to replicate. They know first hand what life in the workplace is like. They do not have to be drawn a map or told what is going on. They know. If we insist on lumping trade unions into the legislation, that knowledge will be lost. It will give greater clarity if the clear exemption for trade unions is built into the Bill as laid out. They are not claims farmers in any way.
	The Barker ruling is a disgrace to the House. Trade unions and their legal services teams should be able to work through us in this House to overturn that disgraceful decision taken in the other place. It is about real people. I support our work with the asbestos mesothelioma support groups. It is a disease that lies dormant for 30 years and then sparks off. People suffer horribly and then dienothing else, that is the story. Okay, drugs like Alimta may help and let us hope that we can make progress with that, but if we do not overturn the Barker decision, the reality will be that of a man facing a firing squad armed with five guns. A bullet pierces his heart. Nobody knows which gun fired the bullet, so nobody is found guilty, but the truth is that they should all be found guilty.

Julian Brazier: The point that the splendid legal adviser to the scouts, Andrew Caplan, made to us is not only that he welcomes the clause, but that it may encourage other organisations to show the courage that the scouts have shown in fighting those wretched people when an unjustified vexatious claim is put forward.

David Winnick: I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about the Manor hospital. I should explain that I applied for the debate because of the urgent and pressing need for major development work to be undertaken at the hospital, which is in my borough of Walsall. Until recently, it was expected that a private-finance-initiative contract would be agreed to and that the work would begin early next year. Unfortunately, that has turned out not to be the case and there has been some delay. It is because it is essential for the work to be agreed to so that it can begin in early 2007 that I thought it necessary to apply for a debate on the Floor of the House.
	As I am sure that the Minister knows, the three Members for the borough met the Secretary of State on 3 May. We briefly explained the situation to her and, of course, strongly urged that the work should be allowed to proceed. I should point out that the Manor hospital, which is the only acute hospital in the borough, provides a full range of hospital services for a population of some 253,000. It has 620 beds. The last major work took place 12 years ago when a new maternity unit was built, which was welcomed since it was essential. However, the rest of the site was built on a piecemeal basis from 1830 onwards. Given the deficits that some hospital trusts have experienced in recent times, I am sure that the Minister will be pleased to know that the Manor balanced its budget in the past financial year.
	I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) is in the Chamber. He will be emphasising the same point as me. At present, 40 per cent. of the buildings on the hospital site areto use a phrase that has become familiar in the past few weeksnot fit for purpose. It is a tremendous job maintaining those buildings and, obviously, a very expensive one as well.
	I give the example of the hospital's east wing, which was built in the late 19th century. It houses children's services, women's surgical wards, dedicated theatres and diagnostic facilities. The wing has a fire certificate until next year, and all the indications are that it is unlikely to be renewed. The three Members of Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and myself, have seen for ourselves wards on the first floor of the east wing which can no longer be used because of their defects and lack of safety. It is most unfortunate that such accommodation lies empty for those reasons.
	Coming to the present, much detailed work has been carried out by the hospital management in drawing up a scheme in line with PFI requirements. That was done so that, as I said, major investment work can start next year. Unfortunately, in the last few months, the hospital has learnt that Treasury rules have been changed and that the contracts that everyone expected to be agreed have been delayed. That has, understandably, caused much anxiety. Will the work go ahead? Will we go into next year with no contracts signed and with the east wing as I described? One can understand the strong concern in the borough.
	We are a borough known to some extent for our quarrels and difficultieswhich sometimes reach national levelnot only between political parties but, in some cases, within them, but we are unanimous in our view that this work should be carried out. We are very devoted to the Manor hospital. Even if this was not the case I would be saying the same, but I happen to be a former patient. When I suffered a heart attack in 1995, the hospital helped to save my life. I speak now as a Member of Parliament for one of the three constituencies in the borough served by the hospital, but I just put that on the file, so to speak. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South has been an out-patient at the hospital on various occasions.
	A hopeful signno doubt the Minister will deal with thisis the visit on 22 and 23 May of officials from his Department's PFI unit. My understanding is that the hospital has proposed some variation in the scheme which would reduce capital cost, and some of the proposals discussed by the unit and the hospital management would mean that some of the work due to be covered by the PFI contract would be outside it. That is welcome. I should add that I am not a devotee of PFI contracts. I would rather things were different, but I am a realist, and if the only way major work can be undertaken is through PFI, so be it.
	I hope that the Minister will be in a position today if not to say yesit would be too optimistic of me to believe thatthen to give some reassurance to the people in the borough that there is every possibility that the PFI contracts will be agreed to, with the fact that some of the work will be outside the contracts making the whole scheme more affordable. That is a hopeful sign, and I hope that the Minister will be able to take up what I have just said.
	There is a wish that the matter should be finalised before Parliament goes into the summer recess, which will be in about five to six weeks' time. Perhaps the Minister will be able to indicate whether the information, one way or the other, will be known to us by that time.
	The three Members involved have met the Secretary of State, this debate is now taking place and we will continue to do whatever we can to sustain the pressure so that this vital workI repeat myself deliberately because it is essentialcan be started next year. No further delay can possibly be justified. I look forward, with some optimism, to the Minister's response.

Bruce George: I am grateful to my close colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), for introducing this short debate. Our colleague, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), has sent his apologies. This is a cross-party endeavour to ensure that a proper decision is made.
	I know that the route towards PFI is strewn with delays and side-tracking. I can understand that. There is a history of rather difficult negotiations. I hope that at the end of the day, and pretty soon, the Department will acquiesce to the scheme proceeding. It is pretty obvious that there have been some disastrous PFIs. I understand why the Minister must be cautious. However, the problem is acute. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North has said, there is a crisis. Half of the buildings currently in the hospital could be annexed by the black country museum. They are part of the black country's history. Yet the fire department has stated clearly that these buildings, despite new buildings over the past decades, will not be granted a certificate. It will be impossible for the hospital to continue to be occupied with buildings that could be open to being sued or brought to court. It has been put on a warning.
	Not long after I was elected to this place in 1974, I recall beginning a campaign for a new Walsall hospital. In 1975, I think that it was David Ennals, who was from Walsallthe late Lord Ennalswho said that there would be a hospital. About 12 years later a new building was put up. It was an incredibly good addition to the site, which was getting rather elderly. Now, there is a crisis. The primary care trust and the hospital have got together on a number of important projects. It would be remiss of me not to say clearly and with pleasure that enormous improvements have been made since 1979.
	However, there will be a crisis. The Government and the Treasury have changed the rules, in my view. Where Walsall hospital thought that it was on target to meet the Government's requirements, now it is not. I spoke to Lord Warner a month or so ago, and also I spoke to the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy). I was led to believe that my right hon. Friend would offer to meet not a delegation of Members putting an emotional casethe Secretary of State has already met the three Members involvedbut a small delegation of specialists. I was told that there was a distinct possibility of that happening. There was to be a delegation of specialiststhe chairman of the hospital, the chief executive, someone from the primary care trust and someone from the regionwho could argue the case in detail for what we hope will happen.
	We urge the Minister to use all the influence that he has with his colleagues to ensure that there is a continuation of negotiations with the hospitalthere is an excellent team of peopleto ensure that whatever is necessary is done, however rearranged, so that building work can begin. There is relatively high unemployment in the area and every index of poverty and deprivation is present in different wards. It would be appalling if the good work that the Government have been doing so far to enhance health provision in Walsall hit a brick walla brick wall that I believe has been put up unnecessarily.
	I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has been well briefed. I hope that the pleas of two Members, together with those of our Conservative colleague, are seriously heeded and that the Minister, will make arrangements for a senior Minister, together with officials from the Department, to meet a delegation from Walsall, minus Members, to discuss the technicalities. I know that there have been meetings in Walsall with officials from my hon. Friend's Department.
	I hope that the promise that I believe was given by other Ministers will be kept and that we will be able in the few months that lie ahead to say that the building is on target. I hope that we shall see the good work of the Government enhanced even further, and that finally we shall have, for the first time ever, a hospital network and health services that are fit for purpose and meet the requirements of our constituents. I once again thank my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North, for permitting me to participate in the debate.

Ivan Lewis: May I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) on securing this debate? Both he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) have a long track record of promoting the proposed private finance initiative scheme for the Manor hospital site. As they said, together with the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), they recently met the Secretary of State to discuss the latest developmentsa subject to which I shall return.
	First, however, may I reiterate my Department's continuing support for the modernisation of the Manor site? That support is not in dispute. The Manor hospital began life as the local Poor Law Infirmary, and it retains key buildings such as the east wing, which houses women's and children's services, and St. John's block, both of which both date back, as my hon. Friends said, to the 1850s. The remainder of the site has been developed piecemeal over the decades, resulting in poor clinical relationships and functional unsuitability. More than 40 per cent. of the building stock is in an unacceptable physical condition and fails to meet health and safety requirements.
	As my hon. Friends pointed out, West Midlands fire service has told the trust that it is unlikely to be able self-certify fire safety arrangements on the east wing after December this year. Even now, the wards on the first floor of the building cannot be used because of concerns about structural safety. The situation has increasingly hampered the trust's efforts further to improve patient services and efficiency. Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust has an impressive track record of maintaining low waiting times for out-patient consultations and elective surgery. Indeed, it has the lowest waiting times in the west midlands, which should be a source of pride to my hon. Friends. The trust has had its busiest year ever, treating 20,000 more patients. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North said, it is financially stable and broke even in 2005-06 after it repaid some of its brought-forward deficit.
	As everyone agrees, the key to further improvements lies in the more efficient working practices that have been designed as part of the new scheme, but they are unlikely to be realised until the new facilities are in place. That is why, in early 2001, the Government approved the initial strategic outline business case for the redevelopment plans that will be taken forward under the PFI initiative. There was a delay in moving to the next stageapproval of the outline business caseas the scheme had to be reconsidered as part of a wider Wolverhampton and Walsall joint service review. As a result, a revised proposal was submitted, which was approved by Birmingham and The Black Country strategic health authority, resulting in the scheme going to the market in October 2004. Despite further detailed service development work, the trust was able to issue invitations to tender and received two successful compliant bids just over a year later in October 2005 from the major consortiums Skanska Innisfree and Carillion. Following further evaluation and negotiation, the trust was poised to appoint its preferred bidder just before Christmas.
	As my hon. Friends mentioned, at the beginning of this year we announced a review of all the major PFI schemes currently in procurement, which included Walsall. We did this in spite of the proven track record and success of PFI to date, because we wanted to make sure that the latest schemes properly took account of the current reforms to the NHS, such as the choice agenda, the movement of services into primary and community care settings, the new financial regimethe national tariffand assumptions about efficiency gains and long-term affordability. A team from the Department has therefore been visiting every relevant trust to work with it on this task. As hon. Members know, the team first visited Walsall in early April and a follow-up visit, as we heard, took place at the end of May.
	That brings me back to the latest developments. The trust had concluded that, as previously configured, the scheme was unaffordable. It thus undertook a root and branch review to ensure maximum flexibility and, wherever possible, to reduce costs. As my hon. Friends know, the outcome has been very encouraging, as the trust's new proposals significantly reduce the annual payment to the private sector partner, with minimal disruption to the core service elements of the scheme.
	It is worth reflecting what the key savings are. They arise, first, from postponing the permanent replacement of wards in the south wing and instead, using a high quality modular building to provide a short-term replacement for a minimum of five years, which will allow the trust to make further efficiencies in bed numbers or totally review its requirement at phase two; secondly, from working with the primary care trust with the aim of the PCT contributing to the funding of the diagnostic and treatment centre element of the scheme or delivering some of this activity in the community; and thirdly, from removing some of the support work and services from the scheme, such as the managed equipment service and ancillary services, which will continue to be provided in-house by the trust.
	It is important to emphasise to my hon. Friends and to the House that these are only proposals at this stage. More work is needed on finalising costings and seeking agreement with key stakeholders such as the PCT, as I have mentioned. The success of the proposals also depends on securing an alternative source of capital for the new modular building and the demolition of the south winga total of 13 million, to be specific.
	I am delighted to be able to announce in the course of the debate that the Department yesterday agreed to make 13 million available for this purpose, and we have written to the trust and the SHA this morning to that effect. Release of this funding will, of course, be conditional on the submission of a robust and affordable business case. I know that my honourable Friends will be very pleased to hear this news, as it also addresses a matter about which I know they are concernedthe urgency of the situation, which they mentioned in their contributions. I know that uppermost in their minds is the condition of the east wing, which, as I said earlier, the trust may not be able to self-certify for fire safety beyond the end of this year. The aim is for the women's and children's services to decant from the east wing to the new modular buildings replacing the south wing. That can now go ahead as part of the main PFI works programme or separately and sooner, should that be necessary.
	The fact that the money has been released owes much to the advocacy of my hon. Friends and their championing of the cause directly to the Department and to Ministers in recent months. I know that the community in Walsall, which cares passionately about the hospital, will be pleased with the early good news.
	Under the PFI review we expect the more advanced schemes like Walsall to have finalised their revised proposals within a month or so. Those will then be considered by the Department of Health and the Treasury, alongside the progress that trusts have made in securing the best commercial and contractual terms with their bidders, which of course influences the overall cost of a scheme. We expect to be able to announce our decisions before the end of the summer.
	In conclusion, as a consequence of the debate this evening, I will log the request by my hon. Friends for a meeting of representatives of the hospital with Ministers and officials in the Department, but we want that meeting to go ahead only if it is absolutely necessary. The ideal scenario, in terms of the progress that has been made in recent weeks, would be for the local partners to continue doing exactly what they have been doing and to finalise a bid with the Department, with all the necessary component parts, as quickly as possible.

David Winnick: My right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) and I are very pleased by the Minister's announcement of the 13 million. It goes without saying that that is good news much to be welcomed by the hospital and the wider community. The Minister referred, as expected, to the east wing. While the 13 million is useful, and we are very pleased, grateful, and whatever other words are appropriate, it is essential that the major investmentabout 160 million in totalstart next year. When are we likely to have the information? What does the Minister mean by the end of the summerthe beginning of the summer recess, a little later, or what? Can he give more precise details?